


what ashes remain (but we're here, we're waiting, don't give up on us)

by Orza



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Child Neglect, Depression, Dissociation, F/M, PK fights depression, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, The Knight is called Ghost, The Pale King Redemption, The Pale King's A+ Parenting, The Pale King-centric, and then on the way there are stupid ass hijinks, and tries to become a better person, honestly should i really be calling this a redemption fic, it's more of a, kinda fic, so he can beg Hollow Hornet and Ghost for forgiveness, struggles with finding a reason to live
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 12:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24849673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orza/pseuds/Orza
Summary: The Infection is gone. Hallownest, he can sense, is at rest.There is little reason left for him to exist.(a new Hallownest rises from the ash of its Infection-ridden corpse. the people are lead by a sharp-tongued half-spider princess, a ghost far too small for their shell, and a holy knight finally free from the bonds of infection and duty. Finally, the future is within their grasp. Finally, the dead can rest in peace.but the past is not so easily ignored. a long time ago, a wyrm saw potential in minds unexpanded. a long time ago, a wyrm came here to die.)
Relationships: The Hollow Knight | Pure Vessel & The Pale King, The Pale King/White Lady (Hollow Knight), unfortunately divorced
Comments: 228
Kudos: 359





	1. my name is ozymandias, king of kings

**Author's Note:**

> The primary problem with a redemption arc for The Pale King is that 
> 
> 1\. this man does NOT want to be here. he thinks he should have died with his people. in fact, he went to great lengths to do just that  
> 2\. hallownest is dead and ergo there is no longer a reason to even strive for redemption  
> 3\. he wants to be cold and calculating but he KNOWS he fucked up big time with that whole child death pit thing and doesn't think anything at all could redeem something like that after Hallownest's fall. which is. um. fair.
> 
> To solve this, we need to introduce:  
> 1\. a reason to live and therefore a reason to strive for redemption - both in a practical sense and an emotional sense  
> 2\. a sense that not literally every single thing he did to stop the infection was entirely pointless (just the majority of it)  
> 3\. idk man i'm winging this shit as i go

**OLD LIGHT WE WILL DREAM NO MORE**

The Pale King wakes up. 

For a long moment, it is all he could do to lie still. To simply be. The cold of the floor, the chill of Void in the air - these things did not seep into him. He instinctively knew that this was because he had here for too long. Wherever here was. His entire being as cold and lifeless as the stone he lay on. For that one, perfect moment, he is as still as a doll.

Then his stomach rolls with nausea and he pushes himself up and leans over and _heaves_ , retches until it feels like he's puked his guts out. His head is ringing like somebody took a nail to it. The effort of expunging saps the last of his energy, and he collapses with a wet thud in a pool of his own bodily fluids. It is utter debasement, beyond even his wildest predictions. There is bile dribbling down the corners of his mouth, dripping down his chin to soak the collar of his robes. It spreads across the stones, stained black with void. 

The world fades in and out of focus. It's dark here, darkness that barely parts before the light he exudes like a guttering candle. Did he escape the void, only to die again in it? Does it seek to draw out his suffering?

A cynical sort of amusement curls up in his chest - effusive, encompassing. He had truly not expected to wake up at all with the circumstance he had gone to sleep in. If he had the strength to do anything else but loll his head to the side, if he could feel anything other than exhaustion, he might even have laughed.

Slowly, the world decides to stop rolling. He cannot find it in himself to be grateful for it. If it was truly merciful, it would have let him succeed on his first attempt.

Focus. This is no time for silly thoughts. He draws in a deep breath, focuses. He needs to regain his bearings. 

He is lying in a dark and wide cavern, the air still with the unnatural coldness of void. Something about the arc and curve of the stone seems familiar. The Ancient Basin? There is rubble lying scattered to his left, and with a jolt he realises that it is the rubble of his Palace. What little of it he had left behind when he left for the realm of dreams. A solitary Kingsmould lies by what used to be its entrance. Void leaks from its armour, and it is clear that it has long since been deactivated. 

He studies the warp and weft of it carefully. Judging by the extent of the degradation of its metal, it must be decades, if not centuries after his Hallownest's fall. Something must have interfered with the spell he had cast, for he can sense no connection to his Dream from it. 

Another failure on his part. He is cultivating quite the track record. 

He tries to turn on his side, but the heaviness of his body means he cannot even twitch. Vomit soaks into the shoulder of his robes, and he tries to resist the urge to shudder. He fails. It appears shaking in his own bile will simply be another indignity he has to face.

...Why was he here?

He had gone about it methodically. He had wanted it to be dignified, and he had wanted be alone. There was no reason why it would not have worked.

("King...your troubles...let us..."

No more, he had thought. Let him.)

He had let his eyes fall closed. Had done it to the tune of fading worship, the soft susurrus of the white blankets he had personally placed over everything he had owned. To the dimming prayers of his people, whispering desperate pleas in his head. He did not need his foresight to come by this knowledge. If he continued to sit on his throne, listening to the screams of the hundreds upon thousands of his citizens in the kingdom he had built for them, with the minds he had granted them, with the hope that he had cursed them with - he knew. To the core and shell of him. 

He would die.

He did not get up. He had not called out for aid. Had stared, blankly, at a fixed point on the wall across of him. Remembering. And then - something had welled up in his throat that he refused to call regret - 

His thoughts slowed. Stilled. Void had flecked in the air and seeped in from cracks in the floor. It had heard his thoughts. It was dwelling in his shell. He had meddled with forces antithetical and now it was in the blood of him, the heart of him, the nooks and crannies of every centimetre of his body and he could not would not did not burn it away. This was what he had earned, all that imperfection deserved. A stain on the world. 

He could still move, he thought, as he traced the ebb and flow of the void with his eyes. As it crawled, ever so slowly towards him. As a heavy weight pressed down on his chest - it was not regret, it was not regret - a consequence of worthless sentimentality.

(It, he had called them. "Through its sacrifice, Hallownest lies eternal." It. How wrong he had been. How they must have suffered - must still be suffering, right now, separated from everything and anything that could have loved them - with no voice to cry it out. How Hallownest had suffered for his idea instilled.)

He did not move. Had taken a last, deep breath. Let it out. 

Closed his eyes.

For Hallownest, there had been no cost too great.

(A too-quiet night. Long days hunched over in the workshop tinkering with the void that seared his hands to touch. As he beheld the innocuous puddle of darkness that he had spent far too long trying to coax into solidity, he restrained himself from striking the table in anger. His light flared with irritation, regardless.

This was yet another failure. This time, the spell he had woven was not sufficiently strong enough to bind void to solid form. There was a tricky balance to strike that he had not yet managed. Too strong the spell, and he would need more material to hold the sigils needed to impose structure on the void, material that was vulnerable to corruption by Infection. Too weak, and the void would liquefy. 

A brief flare of soul-light, and the void that clung to his finger joints burned away. He reached out for a new material, running through the properties of the materials he had available. Perhaps crystal reinforced spider silk? To get it he needed to get out of his chair. He needed to reach for the cabinet next to the mould he used for Wingsmould parts. He needed to - he...needed to...

The lumafly in the lamp above his head was beating its little body against its glass prison. When had he turned his head to look at it? With a start, he realised that there were dark flecks in his vision. Why hadn't those void flecks burned away in his soul-light?

Ah. Sluggishly, he closed his eyes. They were not void. They were a result of a failure of his sight.

When was the last time he had rested? He could not recall. There was nobody around to ask, for he had always ordered his retainers not to disturb him when he worked. This time had been no exception.

He did not need them. Often, when the night grew darker and his body grew heavier his Root would come to find him, curl her beautiful tendrils around his hands and tug him to bed. He would caress her roots, soothing away the stress that he knew she had experienced from a long day of politicking. They had become one, the Kingsoul she wore in her roots proof of their union, and she always knew when he was too tired to work. Had always wanted him by her side when she slumbered.

That night, she had not come. A flash of foresight revealed that she would no longer.)

The dull ache of loss emerged at the memory. A useless and unjustifiable feeling. He forced it away with strength of will, focusing on physical sensation - the freezing chill of bile, the little pinpricks of pain that blossomed on his palms when he curled his claws tightly against them. She had every right to leave - had been, in fact, right to do so. It was unproductive to linger on things that only caused grief.

Wearily, he opens his eyes once more. Surely, there was something he could examine to occupy his mind? To think of things that were not of the past? 

...How, exactly, had he come back? 

His followers, perhaps. He could still hear them. The faint ghosts of his people's prayers, clinging to his robes like frightened children. The echo of their cries in his head, the last of their fervent prayers. But by themselves they could do nothing but force him to linger. They had anchored him long enough - just barely enough for something to ripple through the void, to eject him like so much refuse.

The voice. It was his only clue. Some being of void had clashed with the Old Light, and the aftershocks of their battle must have brought the scattered remnants of his essence back into his husk. He could not directly glean the outcome of their battle, but it was unlikely that she was still anywhere as strong as she had been before he had gone into hiding. He had been unconscious, earlier - half thrown into dreams. It had been the perfect opportunity. She would have done everything she could have to intrude into his dreams if she was still alive, even if she needed to drag herself by the wingtip. She was vindictive like that.

The Infection was gone, then. Or at the very least, severely weakened - he would have to be an idiot to assume it completely banished again - and what void creature had done the deed would no doubt be preoccupied.

If this was an accident, it could not be a common event. And he was close - he could feel it. 

What was bolstering him had right now were but the desperate, lingering desires of people long since dead. If he tried it again, it would work. His previous methodology was flawed only in that it had taken too long, and he could feel nothing but a gaping emptiness at the thought. If only it had worked the first time. If only he had known better.

He knew where to go. 

-

The Pale King had to move quickly. It needles at his shell to not know the specifics of the event that called him here, but there was nothing for it. For now, he was lying alone in the dark, free to do as he pleased. This might have been simply an unhappy accident. Or it might not have been, and whoever had ripped him out of oblivion - some void creature? The Old Light? Perhaps even Unn? - would soon realise he was not going to go along with what they had planned. 

Bitter amusement arises at the thought. It was more likely an accident. What could anyone want from him? If they sought a permanent solution to the Infection, they were at least an entire century too late. There was nothing left to save. Revenge, perhaps? He has little else to offer. What use is a god without believers? What use is a king without a kingdom? 

A civilisation ago, he would have felt a voracious curiosity at this one-of-a-kind occurrence. Would have hunted down its cause with a singleminded sort of intensity, heart alight with wonder. How curious, this place was! How this land of moth-light and green life sparkled with wonders! How right had he been, to come here! Even a century ago, he would have at least been intrigued. 

Now, all he can think of is the yawning dark of the Abyss. 

The thought of finally accomplishing his goal sends a burst of energy into his limbs, and he even manages to twitch. Something adjacent to a nauseating happiness buzzes in his shell and trembles in his hands. Anticipation? Relief, perhaps. His solution truly is the lesser of two evils. 

And so. He focuses and draws what Soul he can towards him, feels the aches and little cracks of his shell seal up. There is Soul within him, too, that had already gathered. Even diminished as he is, he is still a God of Soul and Mind. He could no sooner will himself to stop absorbing ambient Soul than he could will himself to stop breathing. Not even in his Dream had he been able to prevent himself from drawing it into himself. 

The strength it had given him had been an act of true futility. It had drawn out the rattle in his tracheae, forced him to keep breathing through the dust-clogged mess of his spiracles long past the ability of mortal bug. It was likely that it was, in part, the reason why he was still here.

As strength borne of Soul returns to his limbs, he pushes his arms against the ground and forces his body upright - he will not be caught slouching, not even now - then pushes himself to his feet. 

He's standing, but he can feel himself losing focus despite himself. Drifting. It does not feel like his flesh is his own. The scrape of stone against his shell, the rustle of cloth against cloth; there is a distance in the sensation, a muteness of feeling. It is not an unfamiliar sensation, if an unwelcome one. When he wills his body to move he can see it obey, so it is of no consequence. 

He looks down the long passageway that had led up to his Palace. He had walked this path a thousand times over, when the Vessel plan was being executed. He will do it once more. There is an exhaustion that will not leave him no matter how long he rests, and he only knows one remedy.

It will be all be over soon. 

Take a step, he thinks. He puts a foot in front of the other and sways - the world spins, and he presses a claw to his forehead. Stands, trembling, till it subsides. Takes another cautious step. Then another. Past the glow of the lumafly lamp posts, past the jagged edges of the spear-fences. Dust and dirt gathers in his tattered robes, grits against the underside of his tail. Dimly, he registers the stiffness of dried vomit on his shell, on his neck and collar. 

He pauses. Holds up a dimly glowing hand to his neck. Siphons what little Soul he can, focuses. His hand flares bright with a cold light, and some of the stain dissipates. 

He can do nothing for the rest of it. Even now, his body aches anew, his head re-erupting in searing pain. The pain seems concentrated in a line across his face. 

He walks, slow and steady. Then further still. Into a tunnel, lightless save for the glow sputtering from his shell. It comes to an abrupt end but muscle memory carries him to the end of it, where he knows exists a hole. Lets himself fall, wings flaring out with a burst of light to cushion the descent.

(He remembers the day that he met her. He was sure there existed no creature in life nor dream as wonderful. Nor as beautiful, nor as all-encompassing. Root was the whole of what would become Hallownest - her roots spread across the entirety of these caverns, twining in the soil and rock of what would become his kingdom. She did this seemingly without effort, her sapphire eyes sparkling with an ever-knowing grace. 

When he had died for the first time and hatched once more, he had stumbled about the ash of his decaying corpse like a lost grub. Dazzled by simple colours. He had given himself eyes, and the onslaught of everything had nearly been too much. He'd stumbled across an edge he hadn't seen - fell, deeper, deeper - not used to wings yet, not used to having hands even -

Fell, right into a grove. Into the softness of moss. He had looked up into the stalks of thin pale ferns, twining with gently glowing roots. The air was suffused with a tender presence, so unlike the harshness of the cursed lands beyond it took his breath away. There was peace here, and understanding, and when he drew his eyes to the centrepiece of this small piece of heaven, there she had been.

His heart had beat like a lumafly in a lantern far too small for it. The over-stimulation of having eyes, the finickiness of hands. They were all worth it if it meant he could behold her visage. If it meant that someday he could hold tightly onto her roots and have her hold him back.

She had inclined her head, already knowing who he was. She knew everything that happened in this moth-hallowed land, and that foresight-knowledge only made his heart stutter faster.

"Look who's fallen for me, now," she had hummed, her eyes upturned in a smile. And he had been gone, just gone.)

He walks a short distance forward, then lets himself fall further down. Forward again, then further still. A shadow creeper trundles past, eyes dark. He drifts by with nary a sound save for the whisper of his wings, the scratch of his legs against dusty stone. He does not think he could raise his voice here, even if he wanted to. Silence drapes heavy over this place because it is too close to the Abyss. Sound chokes itself, here. 

His body protests movement, protests stillness, protests. Irrelevant. It will serve his purpose. He ignores it.

He walks a small distance forward, then drops down one final time. Turns. Ahead of him lies the tablet he had left as warning. His eyes trail to the entrance to the Abyss, and for the first time since he's ventured forth - he takes a step back.

Had his memories truly failed him that much? He had sealed the Abyss. He _had_. However, he could not discount the evidence of his eyes and ears. There was nothing standing between the Abyss and the Ancient Basin. The seal he had cast on that entranceway had been one of his strongest, save for the Seal of Binding itself. None other than the King -

The realisation sends a frisson of shock down his neck. He is too tired to hold back the ensuing shiver. To stifle the repulsive relief at the thought. This was the rekindling of hope he had thought long since dead. Someone must have taken on the mantle of King of Hallownest. Part of his preparations for his first attempt had been essentially abdication of the throne. He had walked half-familiar paths to the disgusting shell of his former self, and set upon where he hatched a spell that would sear the brand of the King into carapace. 

This, he mused distantly - he was still a bystander to his own flesh - truly was the proof that he needed. Evidence that only supported his certainty. If Hallownest still lived, it was a Hallownest that had no further need for him. There was truly only one thing left to do. 

Ah. His hands were shaking. Clenching them tightly into fists did not work to stop it this time. Pain did nothing, and the sticky sensation of void flecked ichor that resulted from pressing his claws too tightly into his palms again was deeply unpleasant. He folds his hands over themselves in front of him, hiding them within his sleeves. There. A satisfactory solution. The pain was grounding, even.

It is clear. Only one path remains. As he walks forward, the tablet carved with his words echoes them thus:

"Higher Beings, these words are for you alone."

He reaches it. Makes to continue past.

"Our Pure Vessel has ascended."

Pauses.

"Beyond lies only the refuse and regret of its creation."

He can see himself in his mind's eye. The hesitation of his past self in this exact moment. Mirror images, a civilisation's fall apart. 

"We shall enter that place no longer."

Some unknowable emotion tides over him. Before he even fully realises what he's doing, he's raised his hands and gathering Soul and it gleams like a lost star and he's conjured a row of holy nails - pure nails and he. 

Rams them straight into the tablet. 

The solid stone cracks open like an empty egg. The nails flicker and vanish, and the exertion of such a strong attack nearly sends him back to the ground. He stumbles, instead. Bends over gasping-coughing in the way of the dying. Pain sears anew across his carapace, and the rattle of inflammation in his throat, and the exhaustion that drags at his eyelids and aches in his core intensifies with a vengeance. For a moment, all he can see is black. Maybe -? It certainly would save him time.

But alas. The world settles. Slowly, surely, soul seeps back into him. With herculean effort, he draws himself straight and ignores the screaming of his flesh. Chin up. Head poised. Shoulders angled ever so slightly backwards. This was the decorum of decades upon centuries upon a single, shining eon of Hallownest. He will disgrace himself no further. 

The tablet was inaccurate. It deserved to be destroyed.

He strides forth into the Abyss.

(It is this memory of their first meeting. It is this love, that he had pushed to the forefront of his mind on the day that he had asked her permission in the Vessel plan. Had knelt down in front of her, and reached out to grasp her tendrils, and requested - like such a thing could be requested! - for her permission.

He wants her to know this, before all else. That what he is about to ask, he does not do so lightly. 

"My love," he had said, and the words were bitter in his mouth. To utter them, in the same sentence as what he was about to ask - it was nearly too much. But for Hallownest, he would do anything. Their people were begging. Praying. Burning. Even now, they screamed for their King and Queen to save them from the accursed Infection. 

"Please," he whispered. Bowed his head lower. There was no one else in the royal bedroom, no need for decorum. He need not hide anything from her. They were equals.

"Please.")


	2. look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King reminisces about the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: asks for comments
> 
> gets comments. super nice comments! and so many kudos too!
> 
> me: *now nervous i'm going to screw up, but still really wants comments*
> 
> there is no way to win with my garbage brain. send help. 
> 
> This chapter was supposed to include more plot. Unfortunately, it got way too long and I'm going to have to cut it into pieces so the chapter lengths are at least somewhat consistent. Next chapter's going to be a monster to make up for this one's shorter length, dw.

There had been a newly emerging discipline in Hallownest a scant decade before the Infection had first reared its ugly head. The direct study of the Mind and Soul. His subjects had always nursed a liking for accomplishments that were greater than they were, for ambition and grandeur and poise. Knowledge and innovation were not new to them, but the particular direction that they had decided to set their sights upon, this time - it pleased him.

It had only been in its infancy, but he had already been deeply invested in its perpetuation. For the insects he had granted minds and free thought to, to turn around and willingly attempt to study what he had given them - his Root had laughed high and clear when he had tried to subtly promote its growth. 

She had visited his study one day when he had been doing paperwork, and accused him playfully of favouritism. He had denied doing so, carefully slotting the university sent spider-silk letter requesting increased funds that he had already signed under the mound of paperwork on his desk.

("Dearest Wyrm," and she had giggled and picked him up and pressed her face to his own, and he had looked away stubbornly. He had lied, and they both knew that because she knew everything that he did. 

Between them, however, a lie was not so much the obscuring of the truth, but rather an indication they would rather the truth not be spoken about. Or recognised. Or even existed, in fact.

His Lady curled her roots tighter around him, her eyes curling in a smile. She was radiant. He still refused to acknowledge her, looking at a fixed point behind her shoulders. He was aware that he was six feet above the ground and that the way his body was dangling likely resembled a raggedy Aluba. He was still not giving in. She was breaking an unspoken rule! This was illegal! 

"It is perfectly acceptable for you to be proud of what our subjects are doing," and she had laughed, delighted at the involuntary expression he had made at that statement. At the heat rushing to his cheeks. The indignity! Only she was capable of doing this to him. 

"Oh! Do not be shy. It _is_ immensely flattering. Perhaps there is no use for all this tip-toeing about. Why not make a direct appearance at the university responsible for this innovative practice? Perhaps you could address them directly?"

"Absolutely not!" he had cried, and flailed about to demonstrate his displeasure. Unfortunately, his Root knew it was all for show and simply held him closer to her so he could feel the soft flex of her skin. That, and the rumble of her laughter in her stem.

The edge of the sheer embarrassment he felt had melted away like snow in the sun. If it made her happy... 

"In fact," he had insisted, fighting to keep a level tone, "I was speaking the truth. I am not favouring them at all. They were due an increase in funding."

"Of course, dear."

"I barely know who they are."

"Of course, dear."

"May we cease speaking about this?"

"Never, dear.")

-

The Abyss yawns before him. Void flecks brush against his shell and waft gently upwards, buoyant in a non-existent breeze. He is not a particularly warm blooded creature, but void that has not been given form veers past cold into a sheer absence of energy. It is hungry. So very hungry. The Pale King shivers.

Like an old actor on a stage long since forgotten, almost without thought, he assumes the position he had taken so many times before. Steps into that little portion of the steel overhang. Folds his hands over themselves, splays his fanned tail flat against cold steel, and waits. It was - he realised, listlessly - the force of habit manifesting in an action almost practiced. If thralling reanimated hatchlings to fall to their deaths was a thing could be practiced. 

There was comfort in the familiar numbness that emerged when he stood in this exact location, watching void seep into the stone walls of the Abyss. He had not deliberately cultivated it - it had emerged, creeping outwards, engendered by the cold horror that had preceded it. Like ice seared into wounded chitin for so long it ceased to feel. Unanticipated, but let it not be said that he was not an opportunist.

It had made everything easier. Better nothing than weakness.

He takes several steps forward, the click-clack-clang of metal muffled by cloth and void. Reaches the edge. Pauses. 

Like he had presupposed, the degree of the feeling - or rather, the lack of feeling - had significantly diminished with time. Insidious, the old horror was back. In the tremor of his hearts, in the slight waver of his vision. In the way he could not bring himself to look down. By Root, _do not look down_.

He turned. Looked back instead, eyes tracing the places where he and the Pure Vessel had stood, an age ago.

It was good methodology to keep track of results during an experiment. Therefore, he had counted. It had taken 565 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes and 34 seconds for the Pure Vessel to emerge. They were Hatchling 112,504, of Batch 146.

They had been so very small. Their little ridged horns had made up almost a third of their height, and their tattered wing-cloak barely covered their nubby arms. He could have picked them up and nestled them in his arms, and they would have fit snugly. 

They were barely larger than the first ones who had hatched, who had all been flawed the same way. Hatchlings 1 to 154. 

The flaw, he mused mechanically, had arose from an error of his. He had not been thorough enough when intentionally divesting those first eggs of the Soul they needed to develop. Some weakness had stayed his hand, some ancient brooding instinct had screamed protect PROTECT tuck them away in dark quiet safety don't let anyone close don't let anyone _see_ and he had wrestled his claws away from the eggs, let his heavy breathing subside - an abnormality he could not account for, as the exertion of absorbing Soul and instilling orders hardly warranted it - let the glow of Soul fade from his hands. 

It was only the first trial, he had thought, and forced his flesh to still. Already he had taken a vast quantity of Soul and imbued any offspring that would emerge with the initial desire to reach for his light. It was highly plausible that he had done enough, and as such ceasing to draw more Soul was not weakness, but prudence. 

Here, now, the ever-present exhaustion intensifies. He looks up, and it tugs at his head and drags at his limbs. Patience, patience. A century meant nothing if he could do this right the second time.

How foolish, his past self had been. How completely and utterly cowardly. All he had done was delay the inevitable. It was, he dully noted, a tendency of his.

What children had emerged from their eggs - the him of the past had yet to learn his lesson, still thought of the hatchlings as his children, had wanted to be present near the egg when they hatched - were flawed. The flaw had not been outwardly visible, but in retrospect should have been entirely obvious. The Soul he had left behind in the eggs had fought back against the encroachment of the void. 

The first hatchling crawled out of the egg. It saw his light, and came. When he stretched his awareness to them, he could sense it; it had a faltering will, which it had used to reach for the light. It had a wilting mind, cognisant of the pain it was in. 

The first one had cried. Reached out for him, and before he could stifle the motion he was already reaching back to grasp the little hand of his first-born to cradle them to his thorax. It looked so much like his Root. She was there in the way their horns had curved, in the almond shape of its eyes. It had looked up into his face, still holding his hand by the nubs of their own fingers and for moment -

For a single, utterly foolish moment - pure sentiment fuelled it, and pure sentiment alone - he had allowed himself to dream. Perhaps he could take this little one, and all the others, and he and his Root could have a White Palace lively with activity. They would sit at the dinner table and would fling the mashed Tiktik meat at guests and watch him tinker with Kingsmould parts in his workshop, and he could bend down and teach them how to read the measurements of his instruments. His Root would let them swing merrily from the arc of her head tendrils, laughing all the while, and would tuck them into bed with a story and a song, and he would be there, too, curled up around them to offer silent protection and it would be perfect, all so very perfect. He would find another solution to the Infection. There had to be another way.

It had still been crying when its shell had cracked into twain in his arms.

He swayed, on his feet. Numbness. It was all he could feel, now, at the memory. 

It had been an error in his calculations. Its form had not been stable. Its Soul-borne shell was as thin and fragile as the glass-spun skin of Monomon's jellyfish. 

To the fledgling study of Soul and Mind, he had made the following contribution: It takes a Higher Being, such as a Wyrm, approximately 2 hours, 41 minutes and 23 seconds to stop staring at their hands after the disintegration of a small thing that resembled a child. To overcome the effects of a particularly potent shock. 

He had not been able to _move_. Had stared, and stared, and all around him echoed the desperate struggle of beings that had pale shells the colour of his own and their eyes, they had eyes curved just like his Lady and they had cried out for him and scrabbled at each other at the hem of his robes at the bottom of his sleeves as they reached out for the light and touched him and died and.

The Pure Vessel, he had thought, was so very small. Just like the first one.

Unlike it, the Pure Vessel stood perfectly and utterly still where he had directed them to stand. He had stretched his awareness to it, and felt nothing but a waiting emptiness. The void had taken everything from the hatchling that this being wore like a second skin. He had thought, falsely: It was darkness given form. He had thought, thus: It was barely more sentient than a Kingsmould.

He had thought, and lied: It was what Hallownest needed.

(he had made it a lie, he had breathed his flaws into them and cursed them twice over.)

"No cost too great," he had told them, and the words had felt like ash in his mouth. "No mind to think. No will to break."

Had looked away. Did not reach out to grasp their tiny hands.

"No voice," he had then murmured, "to cry suffering."

There would be no children born of Wyrm and Root in the halls of the White Palace. He had no children. The void had taken them before they could even be. (He had let it take them.) 

This, he knew to be true: he was a monster.

"Born of God and Void."

For his people, a monster he would become. There was no other solution to the Infection. He had looked up, then, at where the rest of Hallownest lay waiting, and refused to feel any other emotion than resolve. Let it steel his mind, let it strengthen his will. There had been no use in regret, so he had not felt it.

There was no other way to save them all. What was one little half-life, to a bug fully realised? What was 112,355 little bodies, here in the dark?

A flash of white against the dark of the Abyss. At that, he had inclined his head towards the very precipice that he stood on at this very moment and saw it. A single, other Vessel. It had made the final leap, had latched onto the metal ledge with its tiny claws. This one had thinner horns, and was even smaller than the Pure Vessel.

He had stretched his awareness to it - could it be? Was there another? - and then recoiled, near imperceptibly. 

It was not pure. This one had a will - like the slow drip of water on stone, like the burrowing of roots through mountains. That was how it had managed to resist the spells he had woven into the platforms to weed out those who were not pure. The spells had bade it let go, and it had simply refused. This one would not stop.

Else-wise, they were pure. (It did not matter. A single flaw was enough, and this flaw ran deep.) It had barely enough mind to be aware, and that was a blessing. It meant that it was barely conscious, and did not know that its destiny had been stolen away from it by simple chance. When it fell, it would crack, and it would feel no pain when it died. A death without suffering, as opposed to a life without purpose - that was all he could offer, to a creature as wilful as it. It was all he had offered the others.

May this little ghost of Hallownest rest in peace.

He had turned away and focused Soul into his hands, and began to cast the spell that would seal the Abyss away forever. No more would he enter this place. No more, no more, _no more_ , he had thought, and was not entirely clear what exactly he was asking to cease.

The little Vessel fell, and he felt nothing at the sight. Only the scraps of some unknowable emotion, worn and tattered with repetition. 

It was easy to ignore them. After Hatchling 35,789, it had always been easy.

"You will seal away the blinding light that plagues their dreams," he had continued, walking ahead. The future lay golden. Hallownest would be eternal. Do not look down. _Do not look down_.

"You are the Vessel. You are the Hollow Knight."

The Hollow Knight had followed after him. 

112,356 little empty bodies, here in the dark.

-

It was regrettable, then, that he had been wrong.

Nothing else remained. 

He looked down into the waiting dark, and already knew the sound his shell would make when it cracked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: okay so you’re going into the abyss now, so you gotta go down now and maybe think about the pure vessel -  
> tpk: i love my wife  
> me: I -  
> tpk, downing an entire gallon of ‘i love my wife juice’: root and fancy mind science…was…….my everything…  
> me: YES but  
> tpk, now facedown on the floor, crying: why do i ruin everything i love  
> me: okay are you ready to think about hollow now. and maybe go down so we can move on with the plot  
> tpk: my firstborn hatchling died in my arms. it was me. my fault. i killed them  
> me: ...this is why we can’t have nice things, pk  
>   
> Let me know what you think? I'm so incredibly happy whenever I see a comment from anybody - I read them over and over again when I'm unsure if I'm writing well. I love hearing from you guys.


	3. nothing beside remains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King proceeds with his plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting a chapter at a sane time for me: nah
> 
> posting a chapter at 5am, immediately after spending the whole day writing it: hell yeah
> 
> ALRIGHT. *points at warnings*. The other chapters maybe hinted at the content that the warning suggest, but this chapter - and the one that will be directly subsequent to this one - gives up subtlety in favour of a neon flashing sign. PK's at the end of his rope, and it really shows. What I'm trying to say is, I'm warning you again! I love you guys. Don't push yourself to read this if you feel that it might be triggering to you. 
> 
> PM me if you're curious about what happens and don't want to risk it! I'll let you know what happens.

What does it take to kill a god?

Hallownest was a blessed land with no short supply of Higher Beings. A goddess, he had thought wryly, had been the entire problem. Still, solid information remained scarce. The large part of his research had turned up stories, songs, and secrets. Word of mouth, lovingly passed down by travellers from lesser kingdoms.

(A traveller; his voice low with reverence, claws pressed together in prayer before the crimson-lined corpse of a creature, dead far before Hallownest had come to be. "Even the mighty fall. We were born from the corpse of a war god, little ones - his body desecrated, his lips sweet with poison, his shell made soft with bedrest. The one that lies here, forevermore. They are not so unalike." )

("Even strength curses," spits another, glaring at the tablets of King's Pass. Their shell warped with a birth-defect, their eye white with blindness. "'Your great strength marks you amongst us.' Thoughts projected straight into my mind and these are what they are? What _hubris_. We had a storm goddess once, and we loved her just as she loved us. She gorged herself on our worship until until she could only do what we had always so loved about her - she stormed, and even as we begged her to stop we strengthened her. One day she passed. As all storms do. So many passed with her.")

("Silence," a teacher commands, eyes stern. Her claws pressed to her student's face, her body tense and wary. Outside the wind howled forevermore; but here, in one of the many caves that made up the Howling Cliffs, they were crouched in the dark and the dust and the wail of it through winding tunnels. "You were too young to know this, but your mother provoked the ire of a rain goddess once. You were meant to be Hers, and when she refused to give you up, She cried herself to death. Her voice sounded just like this. Hold your mandibles for now. She is gone, but She might still listen.")

-

Purely physical means were not enough. As such, the thought was naught but wishful thinking. A fall from that height wouldn't kill him, but it would most certainly break his body and render his goal even more difficult. He would recover, just as he had before, but it would take an unconscionable amount of time. 

It was highly likely then, that what being had brought him back - if, he muses wryly, there even existed any creature alive at all in Hallownest that wanted him back - would catch up to him. In any case, there would be a delay, and should he wind up combating them, he was unlikely to have a say in how he would go.

Unacceptable. 

Logistics had to be considered. It would be more efficient to simply jump down and use his wings to break the fall. Then, to proceed.

He takes a single step over the edge, mentally calculates the time to fall to the bottom for a creature of his weight, then lets himself fall. The Abyss blurs past him - void stale air buffets his wings and robes - he angles himself to look up at the ceiling, counting down the seconds till the bottom -

For so many of his cursed progeny, this had been the last thing they had seen. It was fitting, then.

Three. Two. _One_. He flares his wings in a burst of pale light, kicking up a fine cloud of dust. Alights, gently, on the corpses of - he reflexively looks down to ensure safe footing - Hatchlings 105,564 and 100,349. The former had been flawed for having the ability to feel curiosity. The latter for their anger.

He finds, now that he has looked, that he cannot tear his eyes away. Hatchling 105,564's mask (and it had three horns, the little circular notches at the bottom reminiscent of his own) is leaning against 100,349's mask (and this one had only one horn, jutting from the top all jagged and fierce) is leaning against 98,765's mask (still-born, which meant that another vessel had carried this one to the top) is leaning against 109,234's mask (thin horns, delicately interlinked like the root system of a purple-cap mushroom. flawed for knowing kindness) is leaning against -

The entire point of his latest venture into the Abyss, he muses, was that the dead had no feelings. Therefore, the accusatory slant to their eyes did not exist. They are not looking at him at all. He is surrounded by naught but empty shells. 

Empty shells that are _everywhere_. 

On the walls, on the floors, on the dark stone platforms above him that he had so blithely passed by to desecrate this place with his presence. The weight of all those little bodies, piling high into the sky - their empty, empty they were empty _they had to be_ and they were watching him, and he tears his eyes away COWARD but they're everywhere, and he had only done what he must but what had he _done_ there were thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them brittle broken _staring_ murderer murderer **KIN-KILLER**

He's losing control. Quick as a lash, he strikes the wounds on one of his palms. It sears, but the pain - clear, bright - snaps him back into focus.

He takes in a single, shuddering breath. How disgraceful. 

Head, shoulders, back, hands. He angles his head just so, disregarding the low burn of the crack in his chitin. Wrenches his shoulders from where they had begun to curl forward like some grub, as though inner weakness was something that could be physically defended from. Straightens his back, recalling the stiffness of his throne, and then folds his hands behind his back. He is the Pale King, Wyrm of Legend, Higher Being of Mind and Soul. There is nothing left to him but this. He must act like it.

He stalks forward, dimming the glow of his shell as he passes. He needs to move quickly, or his presence will awaken Shades from their slumber. His robes catch on the sharp horns of dead offspring and there it was again, the gaping horror, they were killed and it was him, he did this -

He _digs_ his claws into his flesh. Ichor drips from his arms to stain his robes, to profane the shells of long-dead hatchlings. Lets his eyes fall closed.

 _Enough_.

Enough of this. Enough. He is tired. By Root, he's so very, very tired. He should lift his head high. He cannot. He is not sure, even, if he wants to.  
  
It will all be over soon, and he feels the edge of his exhaustion dull again in favour of anticipation a lesser being would call desperate. It will be all over soon, and perchance it will hurt; but far more likely it will simply feel like it had before, in a dream long since faded. Coldness. Stillness. 

Then darkness.

The void sea sings. He could rip himself free of the gentle compulsion, so much like the comforting press of darkness and rock that came with burrowing deep into the earth back in days of old. Like the shadow of his bed-curtains, drawn by his Lady to block out the pale light of the Palace as he dims his own. He is of Mind still, and this is not a strong allure.

He does not. 

He tears his eyes open, rather, and traces the path of the compulsion as it winds down the passageway that lies before him. The Lighthouse and its keeper resides past this narrow crack of a corridor far underneath the metal platform of the entrance to the Abyss. For the next stage of his plan, he will need to relieve them from nir duty. 

He takes a few faltering steps, then corrects his gait to a more acceptable glide. Begins to walk faster yet. He has not yet summoned the attention of any Shade and desires to keep it that way. There would be ample time for them to make their displeasure known to him later, if they wished to do so. 

Continues, his path lit only by the flickering of his pale luminescence. Into the passageway, where the void-stained air grows thicker and darker still. 

There are no Vessel masks here. He registers the dim relief he feels at the sight of bare black stone. Enthralled by his light, none had never seen fit to come this way. His attention, however, is drawn more to the vein of exposed void that served as the first obstacle towards the Lighthouse.

It is still. 

Shock quickening his footsteps, he moves with the faintest rustle of cloth and kneels by its side to examine it. Not even at his proximity does it lash out; but it did stir, ever so slightly. Whisper its soothing words just a tinge louder. The spatial awareness demonstrated by the void was not new, but this temperance of intent, the patience to wait till prey willingly walked into its jaws...

It hints at a will strong enough to subdue all others, and was disconcerted by the very notion. Still, curiosity urges him to unfurl his awareness to it, if only to confirm his suspicions. He focuses, then casts his focus outwards.

Within this vein of void connected to the void sea, lies not the absence that he remembered feeling long before the vessels came to be, nor the scattered and grasping wills of hatchlings long since passed, capable only of lashing wildly out at anything that exuded light in twisted mimicry of their siblings. The void felt...

Singular.

He reels back. There was a will here, just beneath the surface, and it belonged to a single creature that felt uncannily like another Higher Being. Their attentions were elsewhere, and so the void did not move; no stray lingering will existed. Every last Shade, every one of his cursed progeny -

Consumed. Or perhaps, united? 

A Lord of Shades? Some reincarnation of the old god of the Void Civilisation, or a new being ascended to its throne?

The Pale King levies a piercing gaze at the deceptively calm void, as though to peel back its secrets. Not for the first time since his awakening, he worried after the state of his old kingdom. 

What little left of Hallownest was strictly speaking none of his concern. He began to absently rub at the cloth of his sleeves between his fingers, flicking away the grit that had accumulated. They had a new ruler, and while he could sense the scattered existence of devotees to the intellectual arts, they did not seek the expansion of the Mind in recognition that they could only do so because of his gift. Therefore, they were not worshippers in any sense. 

He could only surmise this: when they had begged, he had not come, and in recognition of this deepest betrayal the scraps of the kingdom had moved on with practicality that suited a creation of his. Mortals had such short memories.

His fingers slip, and he slices a small gash into the sleeve of his robes. He had not done something like that since he had hatched a second time. Fumbling with them, he presses the digits together to still their tremble.

If he were a lesser creature - and he is not - he would feel bitterness at the thought of being forgotten. The Old Light's fury at the notion had caused the plague, but he, unlike her, understood that being left behind was only the inevitable consequence of his own actions. 

Still, a nagging doubt remains. He cocks his head ever so slightly in contemplation, watching as the void rippled gently against the stone that confined it. A new monarch by no means meant that they were doing _well_ , per say, only that they answered to someone else. The very fact that a Lord of Shades existed lent credence to the Old Light's demise, but he knew nothing of their intentions. They could quite possibly be wreaking havoc right now. Surely, he could visit the ruins of Hallownest to check -

No. He grinds his mandibles together, careful not to let them slip past his chin into visibility. Looks up and ahead, where he knew his true destination waited. They no longer had any need of him. He had led them to ruin, and more ruin would only come of his presence. What was it about deicide that engendered such hesitation? Here he was _again_ , making more excuses to delay the inevitable. A failure in every rattling breath. 

If there was anything left of Hallownest at all, his presence would do nothing but add insult to injury.

He stands in a single sharp motion. The void's oddities could be more thoroughly investigated standing on the shore of the void sea, where a much larger quantity of it resided. There was no use in dallying. He lifted his wings, bent his legs and launched himself over the jutting stone platforms that made up this part of the corridor.

-

The question had plagued his every waking moment when the Infection had begun to emerge. The prayers, softly. 

Direct worship of him, he had felt, had been evidence of his own grand success in building Hallownest. The rewards of bloodless conquest - proof, proud proof that one did not need to resort to enthralment, murder and genocide to build a kingdom. Other Wyrms were barbarians, and he had risen above them. On the apex of Hallownest he had stood, god-king of his own kingdom, and he had done so through elevating the minds of all bugs within reach of this land - through giving them the ability to choose! He was civilised! He, himself had risen, above his bloodthirsty brethren!

(He had been so _arrogant_.)

There had been temples and statues and shrines and they had been flattering, immensely so. True worship of him, however; he had given them minds for a reason. It was through their dedication to the perpetuation and bugs of Hallownest that his subjects honoured him. Through the meticulous and disciplined pursuit of knowledge, through innovation and creation and poise. Through the distancing of themselves from the base creature they had once been, to become something greater than what they thought they could have ever been. It was enough that they recognised that they could only do so because of his gift - it was enough that they were of Hallownest at all. 

And. Perhaps. They could contribute more geo to the kingdom's coffers? His redirection of funds towards the study of Soul as a renewable and sustainable energy source had been _expensive_. The infrastructure that the tram project had required - said trams running on the aforementioned expensive technology - even more so. His Root had chided him for years after the fact, namely because he had nearly run the royal coffers dry with what she called a 'stunt'. He had not foreseen any potential disasters that would have required that geo! He had left enough to pay for the maintenance of the kingdom! It would have - and had! - turned out alright! What had she _meant_ 'all our food is made out of geo' - they both siphoned Soul from the air as sustenance, which was nutrition enough -

Nevertheless. Such dedication has required an equal reaction. For the bugs who had given all to him, he would give all to them. Thus, their prayers had been his constant companion, and he had answered them when he could. They had been whispers, at first. They had grown louder, then louder still, until there had been nothing but screams.

(They had been: Wyrm let this experiment succeed it has been 23 hours since i have last slept and have imbibed on so much Gulka juice i am beginning to gain the ability to smell colours, which my professors have informed me only certain species of bugs can do and i am not one of them. Wyrm I am going to be late for school, this will be the nth time and my teachers will not be merciful, and he had felt such exasperation at the sheer inanity of their thoughts.

To trifle with such trifles was such a thoroughly _mortal_ thing to do, and he had attended to their worries with mild vexation. Still, this was his duty, and he would ease their way.)

(They had been: please Wyrm, i desire understanding. what's happening to my mother. i fear that she is beginning to lose her mind - every time she wakes up, she blabbers on about the light, the light. she won't even wake up now, and he could feel nothing but a leaden dread. Wyrm forbid, may the Archives be safe - i heard that one of the staff fell ill, and when they died their corpse exploded like it had been bloated for weeks. weeks! 

It was his purpose to answer their cries. To solve the problem at the source, he would need to find a way to kill what he had already thought dead. Had dove headfirst into research and found nothing but _useless_ anecdotes and he needed information as their voices grew louder and _louder_ and he needed to experiment to produce that data and. 

He had set his eyes on his claws. Days upon weeks upon months of fruitless interviews and research and experimentation had passed. and well. If he lacked information - if he needed test subjects, and _never Root_ , and.

Was he not, too, a god?)

(They had been: Wyrm please please help us HELP ME i do not want to die. i do not want to die i need to find it i we WE need to find a cure, please Wyrm i coughed up orange pus in my sleep and i have not heard my companion speak for weeks. i think it is them, clawing at the door. it is sturdy and but it will not. last. and i need to find a cure, just a little bit more please we need a cure please please _PLEASE_

He could do nothing for them anymore.)

-

The Pale King wills the flesh of his body forward. It will _listen_. He had crafted every inch of it to serve him well, and serve him it would. It did not matter what pain it screamed at him. It did not matter how fiercely it throbbed. One more journey - that was all he was asking of it. A single journey, and a single fall.

He looks up as he emerged from the passageway, disregarding the low burn of his head at the motion. He stands now in the wider cavern where he had ordered the Lighthouse built, in order to hold back the void sea's rage. The air here is no less stale than the passageway that had preceded it. 

It does not take a particularly observant bug to notice that the Lighthouse was not alight. 

He bites back the instinctive flare of panic at seeing a beacon of Soul-light extinguished here, where all light comes to die. 

This is a good thing, he thinks, and very carefully avoids thinking about what exactly it is good for. Presses his legs more roughly against stone to steady them when they shake. This expedites his mission. He will not need to do it himself, and the void sea had already proven itself docile. That may prove to be its own problem, but it also meant that the Lighthouse had outlived its own purpose - the void no longer needed to be held back.

What of its Keeper? Without a sure method to confirm if ne was dead - he had erected protections about the Lighthouse itself, to shield against the void sea's dread influence, and those self-same protections blocked his awareness of it - he could not be certain of nir fate.

With a graceful extension of his wings, he takes the final leap over the last jutting void columns the void had to offer him. Lands gently on the stone platform that the Lighthouse was erected on. 

He, however, knew the boundless depths of nir devotion. The Lighthouse would not have been shut down if ne still breathed. Yet another devotee, then, perished in his service. 

The void sea sings and sings and even here, in the heart of the Abyss, did not make not a single sound. 

He walks forward. It beckoned for him to come to it and kneel by its side. It told him, _see_. It told him, _look at what you've done now_ and he is so _close_. 

He is so close. 

Soon it will all be over, and a revolting, twisted urgency nearly bowls him over with its intensity. He shakes with the effort of reigning himself in. Holds his hands over themselves and not quite manages to hold his head high and he will have _propriety_. He had it his first attempt, and he will have it now.

He stares out into the cavern that housed the void sea. He can make out naught but the vast emptiness of it stretching out into more darkness, more nothingness. Without the pale light of the Lighthouse, and without the old strength of his luminescence, he can not make out where it ends. 

The thought comes, and with it a hitch in his measured step: he would be betraying nir well wishes, by doing this. He would be betraying every retainer, every drop of hemolymph shed by his Knights, every second of every minute of every day spent in ceaseless service. Was he not obliged to give them everything? Had he not promised them the world? If there was anything left of them at all, was he not obliged to give himself to it?

Him, and his robes, his chitin. His joints, every crack of his shell - caked in the shell-dust of his own dead hatchlings. Him, with all his failures - Hallownest was silent. He had abandoned them. Grimm, his Lady, Hornet, the Pure Vessel -

He grits his mandibles together again. Resumes walking forward. He is only doing what he had always done. What he has already committed. 

(He had already failed everyone and everything that had ever mattered. What was one more transgression, here in the dark? There is nothing left.)

-

What did it take to kill a god?

For the Radiance. For the victim of his own mockery of a conquest, for her Infection that spread through the dreams of bugs, borne of vindictiveness and desperation and reckless, reckless emotion, he had managed to craft a method.

If she wished to claw herself back into the realm of the living so badly, he would simply grant her wish. 

She would exist, wholly, within a physical vessel. Her own repugnant desires would make it impossible for her to resist attempting to spread to the Pure Vessel, and with their Focus they would draw the Infection from the dreams of every bug in Hallownest into themselves. With their insentience and purity of focus, they would be able to hold the Infection indefinitely. The Old Light would find within them no foothold to spread beyond. 

She would exist, permanently, physically, and be remembered as long as Hallownest still held breath. By her very own people, who had chosen him. By a being who was incapable of worship. By her most hated enemy. 

A cruel method. The only one he had left.

-

He stands, now, at the very precipice of the void sea. It sits still. Waiting. He notes, as though he was already in its grasp and listening to the echo of his thoughts from above the surface, that it had stopped calling. Perhaps it could sense his intent. Some creature commanded it now, did it not? Perhaps it could tell it did not need to.

A long time ago, he had determined such. He had long since gone past the point of no return. Committed terrible, terrible sins. Therefore to regret, now, when all had been said and done - to wish that he could take it all back - to give him one more chance, just one more chance when all he had were chances that he had let deliberately let slip because it had been the only way his foresight had made that abundantly clear but what was he doing, what had he done, he had been so _sure_ -

There came a point. When to regret was to spit on everything that had preceded it. To be frivolous, even. Therefore, he does not feel regret. Is, in fact, utterly incapable of it. 

The Pale King kneels. The motion is clumsy despite himself, because he is so very tired. The stone is cold and hard, and he aches and aches and aches. It does not matter. He has his solution. Where he was going, there existed no pain. There was, in fact, nothing at all.

The void sea was no longer thrashing with the scraps of will of his cursed hatchlings. He could no longer subject himself to their judgment, and he was too exhausted to chase away the loss he felt at the thought.

Void, however, had inherent properties. Properties that were unlikely to have been altered with the ascension of the Shade Lord.

He reaches out with his upper claws and dips them into the sea. Without a protective layer of Soul over them, void immediately starts to burn at his shell, greedily gulping down his light as all void does, and he does not allow himself to falter even as he feels it start to corrode his very chitin.

He cups his claws together, and lifts them from the void. It drips between the cracks of his fingers. Distantly, he can sense the void creature beginning to stir - his intrusion into the very heart of their territory to use the substance in the heart of their domain was beginning to draw their attention.

He cannot bring himself to care. What could they do to him that he would not already do to himself?

("Sit up," he had commanded, and the Pure Vessel had tried. They wobbled and nearly fell off the table and quickly he reached forward, steadying them with a hand on the shoulder. Guided them to lay back down, scanning their body for any defects. 

Their moult had resulted in many changes. They were larger and their horns more defined, their limbs slimmer and more elongated. Some, but not all of their childish roundness was gone. However, he could find no defects save for the softness of freshly moulted carapace. This would harden in time and was not a concern.

Were they dizzy? Simply not used to moving around again after such a difficult moult? Or was this indicative of other problems?

Perhaps this was a problem more mundane. He too had struggled when he emerged from the corpse of his former self - how the base of his horns had ached, his shell too soft to handle the weight of them. They must be experiencing something similar with how their horns had grown. He should have anticipated this and prepared something to soothe the pain, and he felt a stab of irritation at his own failings. This was an unacceptable carelessness.

"Do not push yourself," he cautioned, voice low and soft. It would not do to overwhelm the Pure Vessel. "Rest here, until your shell hardens."

To the hovering Wingsmould by the door: "Send for a retainer. Have them deliver food and pain-relieving cream."

The Wingsmould whirred off and he turned his attention back to the Pure Vessel. They had tilted their head so that their dark eyes could meet his own. Perhaps he was projecting his own remembered agony onto them, for their gaze almost seemed pleading.

And it was for that reason. Pure sentimentality, and pure sentimentality alone. Unbidden - as though it was the most natural thing in the world - he had extended a hand to their horns. Traced down the great length of them. Gently, he began to rub the base of the Vessel's horns.

Their eyes shuttered, then closed. Soon, their breathing levelled out in a deep sleep. There was no longer a need to continue, but he could not bring himself to stop. His claws pressed lightly against the soft shell of their head. They had grown so large. They were still so small. 

Sentiment. He had told himself. It was for that reason alone that he continued to do this. A projection of an old desire for comfort. A misplaced bout of empathy for an ache experienced a civilisation ago. A faded trace of a memory that had no business lingering in the mind of beings that no longer needed it.

Soon, they would be ready.)

((By Root, he is so very tired.))

-

What will it take to kill a god?

He raises his claws to his mandibles. Leans his head back. Drinks.

With any luck, it will take not very much more than this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pk: dont worry guys  
> pk: i have a plan  
> [the pale king has left the chat]
> 
> I adore each and every single interaction I get from you guys. Every comment, kudo, hit and bookmark makes every second I spend writing this worth it. I spend hours smiling like an idiot after every single comment I get, fr.


	4. round the decay of that colossal wreck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King converses with the Lord of Shades.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *walks in a month later with starbucks and mcdonalds* sup sorry i'm late
> 
> sdfghjk I'm kidding. I'm genuinely sorry this took so long; I had to spend two weeks frantically trying to make my university's deadlines, so I couldn't write very much. Deadlines are over for now, so I'm really hoping I can finally get PK out of the bloody Abyss by the first week of September 
> 
> (please PK i'm begging you you've spent nearly the entire fic in the ancient basin i am tired(tm) of it)
> 
> also if it wasn't for thethrillof. this. probably wouldn't have gotten finished at all. what you said to me really pulled me out of a downwards spiral and i am grateful
> 
> thank you.

Void truly is a strange substance. It had appeared liquid, yet it pierces and grinds down his throat like the crystalline grit of stone-turned-glass. Frigid like ice, growing cold and then colder still as it stabs down into vulnerable flesh; an absolute chill that speaks of an utter absence of heat. Difficult to swallow. Utterly painful, in fact, and he fights against primal instinct buckling at him to _get it out get it out_ and nearly chokes before he presses a shaking claw to his mandibles and. _Presses_. Harshly, so no poison can escape. Lets out a shuddering breath, pain searing in the newly corroded flesh of his throat. By kingdom and country, it hurts. 

(This is the price of failure, and he will pay it in full. 24,893 hatchings had died in this manner, escaping from the egg only to be exposed to too much void. as it burned away so much Root and Wyrm that there had been nothing left. 

he deserved this. he deserved this, and so much more.)

Even so. He could have regressed to the blind savagery of his old form and still have noticed their presence. Perhaps _presence_ was a misnomer - it was not so much that he could sense that something was there, as much as he could sense that there was nothing there at all. 

It is with great reluctance that he trails his eyes away from his void-stained claws. He would indulge this final threadbare curiosity that prickled at his chitin like poorly woven fern-fibre. It was not every day that one was unfortunate enough to stumble across another Higher Being, and he would be passing very, very soon. Already he cannot feel the churning of his gut, as though the sensation had been eaten clean out of his carefully crafted organs - already, his vision blurs. 

He sighs. With far more effort than it should have taken, pushes himself to his feet. Looks up.

There was no ambient Soul in the space directly above the void sea. There was simply a swirling, burgeoning absence in the fabric of Hallownest, growing larger the longer he stared. 

Unnatural. 

Even here in this light-forsaken hell-scape, there always had been ambient Soul. As long as a creature was capable of memory and still lived, Soul that was not spent on the animation of their bodies would waft from their shell - and even this place had once fostered life. The remnants of it still crept along its walls with the steadiness of a tiktik to a waiting nail. Collected dust, long since forgotten by any creature without an eternity in memory. 

Therefore. For there to be none in front of him -

There was, he noted, no attention being levied at his shell. When he cast his mind out, searching for another, he found no gathering consciousness focusing into the dread sea before him. As the air grew colder and darker and heavier, nothing presented themselves.

Only an absence of existence so complete that it became something all on its own.

Nothing pulses open eight eyes, gleaming white with Soul against a darkness even deeper than the void they had arisen from. Nothing has curved, symmetrical horns, the two adorning the top of their massive head splitting gracefully into two prongs each - the outer prong far more prominent than the inner. Has four massive arms, lanky and jointed, two of which they held awkwardly by their side like - he narrowed his eyes, noting the stiffness of them - they were...unused? To having them. Void tendrils slip from their indistinct accumulation of a body to wave languidly in a non-existent breeze.

Nothing, which meets his narrow gaze squarely. Stoically.

His vision is going darker. His extremities colder. He knows, with the instinct of an animal on the verge of death, that no amount of rubbing his limbs together would chase away the chill. 

"Lord of Shades," he greets, and folds his claws back into his robe sleeves in a casual motion. Still. If they were a Higher Being worth their salt, they would easily be able to sense the void that even now radiated an impossible cold into the heart of him, into the chitin of his palms.

Fear - this was raw fear, that bade his heart beat faster at the sight of another Higher Being who could extinguish his luminescence with a twitch of a finger. How quaint. Fear was for creatures who cared for their lives, and he was not one of them. 

Fear that spikes higher as the Lord of Shades dipped their massive body down, angling their head so they could maintain eye-contact. Their head is his height three times over, and he could feel the staccato thumping of his hearts in his throat as they tower over him. Why, for love of Root, had he overcompensated so much for the small sizes of bugs when crafting his form?

They come to a halt. A beat of terse silence, then they narrow their own eyes, their tendrils writhing more agitatedly. He eyes their movement warily. Was this an indication of anger? Confusion? Curiosity? A question? Images of the future superimposed themselves upon the present, but provided no answers - the Lord of Shades was as inscrutable then as they are now. 

There is no other way to know their thoughts. If the Pure Vessel had been able to hide their emotions and thoughts so thoroughly his ability to sense them could not pick them up, it was unlikely a being far beyond their mastery of Void would yield any results. It would also be unforgivably rude. 

It would be prudent to address the most obvious transgression.

"It was - " he chokes on the void still paring at his throat, then gives up on speaking entirely in favour of mental projection. "It was improper of me, to trespass into your territory. You need not worry," and he feels dark humour creep into his voice, "I will not be here for very much longer."

The Lord of Shades does not respond. Only blinks their eight eyes slowly, cocking their head to the side. 

Something cracks. Pain spikes through his head and before he even realises it he is doubled over, scrabbling again to press his mouth shut and the poison in. The sound is something like the widening fissure of a plane of ice, and _cold_ , void is a cold so sheer it cuts, and it came from somewhere close, what was - ?

Something wet, seeping through the front of his robes. He presses a clean claw to his chest and comes away with ichor more black than pale. Ah. The sound came from him, then.

Success, so nearly in his grasp. He would laugh, hollowly, if he was not so very sure that no sound would escape him now.

The non-presence shifts, and he gingerly cranes his head up. The Lord of Shades had moved closer, the void tendrils of their body writhing even more agitatedly. Staring, all eight Soul-bright eyes trained on him. 

Why did they stare? Why were they here? Could he not be left alone in his own final moments? He is no Nightmare-spawn. He does not want an _audience_. Ire sparks low in his throat. He grits his mandibles, hiding the movement under his mask. 

"If you are curious to as to my purpose here," he states, mental voice projected and level, "I would think my intentions obvious. Nevertheless, I will enlighten you. I am trying to die."

He does not bother to explain why. He doubts the Lord of Shades, ancient god of the Void Civilisation, would be particularly interested in his justifications. Instead, he inclines his head pointedly towards the ceiling, where the rest of Hallownest wallows, and hopes that they would get the hint. The world wavers and dims further at the motion, and he fights to keep upright. To keep his eyes on them - or at least where he thinks they are. He can see no further than the scant few meters in front of him, now. 

"If you'll excuse me," he says, in a tone of voice that he hopes conveys that he is not _asking_ by any means, "I am _busy_."

The Lord of Shades does not react. 

Or they do, and he does not see it. He thinks he is starting to hallucinate, now. Perhaps he had always been blind, and the void had only now peeled back the veil. It would certainly make sense; he had always been blind. 

No pain now. It is being eaten alive, and it will eat the rest of him in short order. It is something akin to peace, this numbness - of feeling, of thoughts, of mind. He knew this would do it. There had simply not been enough, the first time. He had not regretted enough - but it is not regret, he would not permit it, he would not let their suffering be for nothing. 

Except it had been, had it not? It had all been. 

He had sacrificed them for nothing but dust. There was nothing that could make this right, but it would be alright. Soon, he would be nothing, too.

He is shorter now. Did he die, already? Again? Where was the - no. This is stone. He is lying on the floor. Had fallen. Eight bright pinpricks of Soul coming closer and HE NEEDS SOUL no he does not. it would heal him. do not touch it. he is looking down and down into the waiting dark now and it is cold, down this sheer glacier and he is falling, falling, falling. he is curled up on the floor and cloth is rough against his face. stars - eight of them, and he was in-between them and there was nothing but nothing. he is - he is -

in the carved-out edges of a hollow in a chest looking at three masks set into impassable stone. in the ashen grave of the kingdom's end facing a spiderling's retreating back whispering worthless words. in the throneroom and it is empty of course it is empty he had made it so and soon he will no longer have to endure it soon it will be gone all gone and he will go, and he will go willingly and it will always be quiet but he will not be there anymore, and void rushes up to meet him and

"N̶̨͇̠̬̥͛͜ǒ̶̧͚̥̗̲̘̳͍͠," the Lord of Shades says. And the Pale King _slams_ back to himself with the force of a tram.

-

Again, again, _again_. He rolls on his side and his stomach turns itself over and he hacks and coughs and _hurls_. Void stricken acid dribbles utterly disgustingly all over his front and sears in the new crack in his chest and there is far more than it makes sense for him to be able to physically expel. Than he had ingested, even. Some force must be driving it out, and he tries to jerk his claws to his mouth but they simply twitch uselessly. The world is wavy and spinning and indistinct but it is _there_ , and he is present and lucid and very much alive; cold and aching something fierce with a newly aching crack in his chest but _alive_.

This is, and the thought dawns on him like being thrown in cold water, a very familiar feeling. Had he not been through this before?

"You," he says, distantly, and nearly does not recognise his own mental voice.

It surely must be some other Wyrm, he thinks - some other Wyrm whose voice is ringing with fury so incandescent he can see the darkness creeping in the edge of his vision flinch backwards. Some other Wyrm with their hearts beating fast, a cold weight in their thorax and an anger sharpening to a single point.

Ba-dum.

Ba-dum.

 _Ba-dum_.

The Pale King pushes aside everything else and _focuses_ and the air bursts into light and brilliance and Soul, shimmering; it comes crashing into his body and he swiftly redirects it away from his guttering vitals and to his limbs. Heals them just enough for him to be able to push himself up and stare the enemy in their eight-eyed face. Lets light blossom in his claws and sharpen itself into singing steel - nail upon nail upon nail as many as he can manage - all tarnished by weakness but still sharp with ire and he points them at this insolent creature and -

He had delivered himself gift-wrapped to the creature who he had been trying to escape.

" _You_ ," he says, again, and his voice echoes off the walls of this light-cursed stars-blasted cavern. " _You were the one who brought me back_."

A pause, to compose himself. It does not work. " _Explain yourself._ "

The Lord of Shades straightens up in a motion that should have elicited a crack. If he had thought their tendrils agitated before, they had nothing on them now; now they twisted and thrashed and in all their frantic motion refused to come near him and end his miserable existence.

"M̸̧̘̖̻̪̫̅e̴̡̜͉̜̼̺̭̜̾͆̈́", they agreed, their eyes curving upwards in some mockery of a smile, and the Pale King startled. That was _not_ the mental voice of an ancient Higher Being. Despite the reverb, the smugness of their tone, and their significant size...

It was the mental voice of a _child_. 

His anger dissipates in an instant. In its place arose clarity, arose no small amount of mask-warming embarrassment. He shelves the feeling with a barely perceptible huff. Waves his hands and dissipates every nail. One did not school children with weaponry. Unless weaponry was what they were supposed to be schooled in. In which case ample quantities of weaponry were required.

He was rambling. How the mighty had fallen - the Pale King of Hallownest, riled up by a toddler. 

"F̷i̴r̷s̵t̴ ̸t̵i̷m̸e̵ ̵a̵c̴-̴c̵į̵-̶d̵e̵n̴t̵.̵ ̵S̵e̷c̵ó̶n̵d̵ ̷t̴i̷m̸e̸ ̶n̵ǫ̴t̶," they continue, and he watches as they bend back down to press their face closer again. Still radiating smugness, they parrot him: "I̵ ̴t̷h̴i̸n̸k̸ ̵i̴n̷-̷t̵e̴n̸-̶t̶i̵o̵n̵s̴ ̵o̷b̸-̴v̶i̵-̸o̸u̴s̵.̵" 

Their intentions are very much so not obvious, but he was distracted from retorting by the sheer youngness of their voice. By Root, they barely sound two centuries old. This could _not_ be the original Lord of Shades.

Through the lens of his new knowledge he could pick out the little tells that betrayed their youth. The awkwardness of their movements, as though unfamiliar with a new body. How curiously they had acted towards an intruder into their territory, as though they had never experienced such before. 

He resists the urge to press a claw to the shell in between his eyes. _How_ was he going to pass, now? He had no experience handling children. The Pure Vessel hardly counted, and Herrah had taken on the largesse of Hornet's care.

("If," he had whispered, and Herrah's child had paused in the middle of taking her leave. The rest of her had only just grown into her pale horns, which scant months ago had seemed too large for her body. The proud arc of them against the cavernous sky, as she looked up and away into the detritus stricken air of the kingdom's edge - her void-stained fingers, gripping the handle of her needle like the throat of a stubborn gruz - he committed it all to memory. 

As he watched, she tightened her grip. 

"You need not listen. You have no obligation to - it may be best, in truth, if you do not, and in the distant future take the opportunity to leave with the rest of your kin," and he twitched his mandibles because he was _rambling_ , too much silence and too many things to say and it was worthless, all of it was worthless. 

But even in the face of his drivel she held steady. Strong, that was what she was, in the presence of a detestable near-stranger. Stoic. Far stronger than he had been at her equivalent age, in her equivalent situation, and still with clan and kingdom that would nurture that strength. She did not need -

She would not need -

She would _move past_ -

(( _child_ , something screamed at him. child your child curl close tuck close hold close and he forced it down, forced it away. if someone had observed him then, the only thing that would have betrayed his thoughts were the slightest twitch of his lower claws.))

He had drawn a long breath. Prepared then, to speak his final words.

"Princess of Deepnest, I would make a request of you. If you have any love left for this land at all, I beseech you give me audience.")

He truly has no experience handling children. Now - and it was hilarious really, a special brand of dark irony that would have had Grimm nudge his side and grin, sardonic, in commiseration - the fulfilment of his deepest desire depended on the whims of one. For the longest time he had disbelieved in the existence of a god that governed fate; but the events of his life had since lead him to revise this assumption.

Surely, some entertainment must currently be derived from the cosmic joke that was his life.

"Child," he speaks again, and in the hollow left behind by his anger and surprise he could quite not keep his exhaustion out of his voice, could not keep it level. The new layer of utterly repulsive vomit is sticky against his shell, and he had dragged himself all the way down here, and he had been brought back from the brink of death twice within the hour. He could still feel his deliberately Soul-starved void-damaged organs struggling to keep him conscious. Physically, he was spent.

"Explain." he demands. Watches the Lord of Shades tilt their head to the side, still radiating childish smugness. "I understand that the first time was an accident. However. For what purpose did you call me back from near-death a second time?"

Why would they not let him _go_?

The Lord of Shades not-rumbles, and all the void in the not-rumbles with them. It is more sensation than sound, really. It is, however, undeniably amused.

"B̴̢̘̰͓̗̦͂̽̓́e̶̹̒̓͆̽c̵͙͔͂̓̀͑͑̕a̵̢͚͔͖̔̏̉͑ṳ̸͈̻̪̱̙̅̋̌̔͐sē̸̜̬̎̚," they work through the multi-syllable word carefully. "Y̴o̶u̵ ̶w̷a̸n̵t̵ ̷t̶o̵ ̵d̸i̶e̶.̴ ̷S̶o̷.̵ ̷I̴ ̷d̵o̴ ̸n̶o̸t̵ ̶w̴a̷n̶t̵ ̴y̵o̶u̶ ̶t̸o̶ ̸d̸i̷e̴.̴"

They fall silent. He stares at them, internally willing them to elaborate. There had to be more to it. There had to be more to them denying what penance he had deemed appropriate for himself - what punishment, what end. Was there a grudge? Did they simply not know what he had wrought upon Hallownest and the very place they must have arisen from? _Had they not seen the corpses?_

(112,356 little hollow shells, here in the dark. Hatchling 58,243 had dragged 58,124's mangled corpse to the top. Proudly, they had presented it to him. Here, they had thought. I did it so you did not have to.)

No - that was impossible. However, it was plausible that they had been born after the Abyss had been closed. Perhaps they had simply not seen who had been responsible.

He would simply have to tell them, and they would know that he was their enemy. No principle, he thought dully, was worth leaving your enemies alive. If they did not know that, he would simply have to teach them that as well.

"I murdered them all," he said.

He gestured at where he came from. They would know what he was talking about. There was truly only one thing he could have been.

"With my own four claws," he continues, voice toneless. Verging on matter of fact, for he speaks nothing but the truth. "I placed the eggs borne of myself and my Lady into the darkest depths of the Abyss. There, the void consumed them. Any hatchling that could have been born, killed before they could even truly live."

The Lord of Shades' tendrils still. Every particle of void that drifted in the air and dwelled in the sea stilled alongside them. The only indication that time still moved was the pulse of his ichor under his shell. It was working, they were beginning to _understand_ and so he continues, failing hearts beating pit-pat fast as he balls his fingers together so tightly they dug once more into his palms. Drew blood once more, hidden under dusty fabric.

"However. My technique was imperfect. The void - " and the Lord of Shades had begun to tremble, with rage or grief he could not know, "- did not kill them fully. They were godlings, every single one of them, and myself and my Lady's nature proved too strong. They hatched, and what was left of what they could have been still lingered, and they _felt_. Something. Every single one of them."

He had thought he had long since moved past feeling remorse at the deed. Wounds, and numbness, and ice held to shells for so long he could not feel them - that was what he had thought. 

"What little those dead children felt would have doomed us all," he whispers. Worthless justifications, spilling out of a worthless throat. "I knew they would try - to take on the Old Light themselves if I had let them live. It was their purpose. It was all they had been made for. If I let the failures crawl out of the Abyss - for love of their siblings, to seek fulfilment of their only purpose, they would have tried. They would have failed. We would have all died."

His void-induced delusions had torn that belief apart. It had been regret he had felt. It had been remorse, black remorse, spilling from his shell in that throne room. It did not matter how much he rejected it. It did not matter what he called it. A lumafly, by any other name. 

If he truly could no longer delude himself into believing that he did not wish he could take it all back. That meant, with the finality of a gavel on hardwood. It had all been for nothing. It had all been for nothing, for a very long time.

The Shade Lord did not speak. They continued, rather, to tremble with some unknowable emotion. The rest of the void too had lost its stillness. Rather. All around him, every iota of it. Had begun, very slowly, to shake.

"The one reanimated hatchling that I let live - the singular result of that mass infanticide - " he could not. He must not. He had to go on. Only the Lord of Shades would grant him the swift death that he sought, and he was very, very tired.

There is only the faintest wobble in his voice when he continues. "I tainted them. I could not suppress my own - I treated them indulgently. They must have - they had to have, if the Infection had reemerged - they must have _suffered_ , so."

(He had looked at them. Unbidden, they had looked back. He should have known, then. _He should have known._ )

When would this mockery of a confession end? He bows his head, and realises that he had been shaking with the effort of his own words. There was nothing left of him he could offer. He could not elaborate further. Did not think, even, that he is capable of doing so.

"With my weakness, I failed them all," he breathes out. Broken glass, to sweep away. "My own purpose has been made forfeit."

He takes a step forward. Drags forth this uselessly crafted body. Crafted for a long-dead kingdom, for which he had sacrificed everyone and everything. 

Drowning - he had heard that was a painful way to go. Appropriate. They would leave, and he would drown in his regret.

"Leave me, Lord of Shades, and let me pass."

Silence. Long, stifling, silence.

Were they not angry enough? Did they simply not care? No, he realises, as the void's trembling grows in force - as the very air itself begins to quake - they would give him what he wanted, after all.

He bowed his head lower. He waited. He, very carefully, did not move. 

"N̴̮͓̳̋o̵̼͍͊̐̕," the Lord of Shades says again, and the world fell once more into stillness. 

The Pale King snaps his head up, unable to repress his complete and utter disbelief because what kind of god could hear about the enactment of such atrocities on their own subjects and _still not want the perpetuator to die_ -

The Lord of Shades is still looking at him, and something about the set of their eyes now scream wilfulness. 

It is very, very familiar.

"I̵ ̵s̶t̵o̴p̶.̶ ̸C̵a̴r̸e̶ ̷a̶b̸o̸u̵t̵ ̴w̷h̸a̷t̷ ̴y̷o̷u̴ ̷w̷a̵n̴t̸.̸ ̴W̷h̶e̸n̵ ̵y̸o̵u̷ ̴l̶e̴f̵t̸.̷ ̶M̵e̵ ̴t̴o̴ ̴d̷i̵e̶.̷"

-

they.

lean the mass of their indistinct body forward. 

closer. 

and closer.

until the bulk of their body hangs above the platform.

until he can look up, and see nothing but their void.

then. 

with a not-sound like a slab of gruz-meat.

being squashed into a small hole.

they shrink. 

smaller. 

and smaller.

their horns lose their dramatic curve, into something more sedate. 

they lose the protrusions on the sides of their head.

their four arms merge together into two.

their amorphous body presses itself into two legs.

small.

so small.

like a _hatchling_.

they plop onto the platform in front of him. 

with little, nubby arms. 

they push themselves up.

they do not say a word. 

they do not have to.

-

and it is too much. it is well and truly too much. 

-

 _he cannot breathe_.

he can not, he well and truly could not anymore and he cannot _breathe_ and he is drawing Soul, brilliantly glowing Soul into himself and he still cannot breathe useless disgusting organs and he _stabs_ his claws into his neck and ichor spills out and hatchling 112,356 stares back at him and they will not kill him this could not kill him and Kings-light spilled from his carapace and screamed across the cavern and he could feel nothing, nothing, nothing. 

_he cannot even die. he cannot even do that._

and then. 

A single, ear-splitting cry. 

-

He freezes. Hatchling 112,356 freezes. 

A small, void-black hand rises out of the void sea. It grips onto the platform on which he stands. Then another. Then a white mask emerges, all the more pure against the sheer dark of the void, white that he knew is the same colour as his own shell. Two curved horns, asymmetrical - both with tiny jagged points along their length, like the thorned vines his Root favours for protection. 

A little Vessel heaves itself out of the void sea. It collapses, gasping for breath on the edge of the platform, void sloughing from it's carapace and dark wing-cloak like a hatchling newly born. For a single beat the world holds its breath as they both stare at the utterly impossible creature that had just emerged right in front of their eyes. 

_he could not breathe._

Hatchling 12,313. Flawed, dually so. For loneliness, and the voice it had used to cry it out.

The Vessel looks up. It sees him, and the bright shimmer of Soul in his carapace, and he realises that the _spell_ , he had never removed his entrancement to seek his light from any vessel except for one -

It reaches out in front of it. It grabs onto the platform with its little nubby claws. Lets out a little sob, void tears spilling from its eyes. It is dying. Plain enough, to see the cause; it is from far too much exposure to the void. As the two of them stare at it, its thin carapace warped and wefted from the void sea's influence, it begins. To crawl. Towards him. 

By Root, after all this time. _It is still trying to reach him._

Its shell splits against the rough stone of the platform and void-black souls-blood streaks out and it is wailing, the little broken thing, small body wracked with the force of their flaw. Hatchling 112,356 lurches forward as if to scoop them up and it hefts itself up and _screams_ at them and they lurch back, eyes wide in their shock.

He cannot move. He watches it continue to crawl towards him, arms shaking with the effort and it is the first hatchling and the second and the third and it would crack apart if he touches it, surely. Flawed creature as it is, weak with emotion and fragile in shell, it is already breaking apart. He notes all of this down from where he stands scant meters in front of them - watching some distance from his puppet-body as his thoughts turn and churn and fall back onto irrational habit. 

Hatchling 12,313 had emerged. Now, for the scanning of its mind. He reaches out, like a wretched tiktik treading dust into dirt. 

It is immediately obvious that this one was not pure. It houses a flaw like a spot of sandstone on chipped obsidian - it longs for company like a drowning bug scrabbles for land. Even immersed in its mind as he was, he could hear it as it cried out with the force of its desire.

Something tugs at the hem of his robes. He looks down. 

It is there, now, holding onto the filthy cloth like it is a lifeline. Barely conscious, barely alive. Its mask was unmarred by the void overexposure, but it is the rest of its body that is proving to be a problem - its dive into the void sea meant that it had taken on far too much of it. Not even the scratches it had carved into its skin in its desperate attempt to reach him had alleviated this imbalance - not enough void had left it to stain the floor.

Hatchling 112,356 rustles with what looks like distress, eyes trained on Hatchling 12,313 and its closeness to him. Again they reach out as if to pull it to their side. Again the little thing screams and clings closer to his robes, and again they rear back. Is that fear for the little one, he can read in their body language? Another failure, then.

Foolish, too. They did not need to worry.

He kneels, and the little one startles at first then grasps tighter at his robes with a terrible need. Hello, little purposeless thing. 

He will make its second death swift.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PK says no double standards if he ain't got a purpose he offs himself if _they_ don't have a purpose he offs _them_
> 
> what do you mean that's a living breathing thing. that can't be a living breathing thing because that means that every single other vessel was a living breathing thing too??? the pure vessel was a living creature _because_ he fucked them up, but he had to fuck them up to begin with. so, like, all this """""crying"""""" and """""""loneliness""""" nonsense is obviously void propaganda. fake news
> 
> also if i ever stop replying to every single one of your comments, kudos and bookmarks just assume i died in front of my computer trying to reply to them while ugly sobbing happy tears. they really make me happy. i love to hear what you thought about this thing. that is all.


	5. i see myself in you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King struggles to do what is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know that one twitter post about a hypothetical gordon ramsey coming by to ask for some hypothetical potluck and then op going what the heck sure thing sir but what the heck
> 
> that's me and you guys are all the gordon ramseys
> 
> i'm sorry for the huge delay! 
> 
> i was initially supposed to finish this up _before_ i packed up and moved country, but it all took way longer than anticipated and then university started and my dissertation deadlines hit me over the head and rifled through my pockets for change and i am dying inside
> 
> ALSO LOOK AT SOME INCREDIBLE FANART????  
> https://skyedragondraws.tumblr.com/post/627206138845413376/fanart-of-the-lovely-waiting-for-reason-s-fic
> 
> https://hollownest-whore.tumblr.com/post/627631582846582784/waiting-for-reason-pks-been-gawking-at-this
> 
> also if you got two notifications for this! sorry! I messed up the update date (again) and decided to reupload it instead of fighting with ao3

Regret was not a quality that cared for finality. Nor did it care for truth; the simple incontrovertible bent of the world, and the way it curved towards a single inevitable conclusion.

Nothing drove that home clearer than staring the last two lingering manifestations of it in the face.

This impossible hatchling grips small fistfuls of his filthy robes like the fabric was offering it deliverance from all suffering. It looks up at him like he already had. Behind them lay the arc of another pale shell - by the shore of the Abyssmal Sea, the other void creature inhabiting his child’s body had fixated their eyes solely on the hatchling that had sought out his light.

It was a necessary thing to do. To breathe, he meant. If it would behoove his lungs to simply _do it_ , that would be lovely. Irritation arose at his own ridiculous reaction – what right did he have to panic, to that utterly ludicrous urge to burrow deep, burrow low – and he used it to quell said unproductive urges. There was still dead to put to rest. There was no time for such things.

The pale shell in the corner of his eye moves. The reanimated hatchling by his feet reacts with a pained whimper. Slowly, surely. He looks up from Hatchling 12,313 to the being that had denied him an end.

The Lord of Shades. Vanquisher of the Old Light.

The last hatchling.

This form of theirs still had two antlered horns, thinner than the Pure Vessel’s. Slightly smaller, too, they now flex their small claws with every appearance of anxiousness for their fellow vessel. Yet. As he watches them toe the shoreline of the Abyssmal Sea, where they had retreated. They were unable to come any closer. It was certainly not for lack of a desire to do so – as he stares, they stretch out their small arms as though beseeching their sibling come close.

(Was it his imagination, or had their horns grown a scant claw-width thicker? Was the void of their body of a deeper quality, now, than it had been? Had they grown a little taller?

He buries the thoughts as soon as he notices them. Foolishness of the highest degree. He had forfeited his right to such whimsy a long time ago.)

The little one shudders, then responds with a strangled sob that flails through the silence like a rabid dirtcarver. He winces. Hatchling 112,356 quickly withdraws their arms. As powerful as they are, and as inexpressive as their mask was, they had no business looking as fearful as they did. It was palpable in the way the very shadows had curled towards it; in the way their eyes followed every one of its twitches. The way the air around them thrummed with waiting not-power.

Regret was an emotion that only wanted, and how plain it was to see that this particular embodiment of it _did_. That they cared, so very much.

(They had Ascended, and that was no easy task. Especially if they had achieved it how he suspected that they had - through the wresting of the Old Light's domain from her wingtips, through the absorption of her Essence into themselves. It was a theory with many obvious inconsistencies. Yet, one thing remained certain.

They had fought the Old Light, and she would have harnessed every ounce of her ill-gotten power into trying to crack their shell apart like a maskfly egg. Would have poured her caustic, poisonous dream-light into every corpse of every bug of Hallownest that she had not yet ripped apart, and then forced them to murder in defence of their murderer. 

The last census that Lurien had conducted had numbered the population of the City of Tears in the millions.

They. They should not have had to - )

It was their self-same worry for their sibling that was proving a problem. Freshly blooded, powerful and undiminished, they carry with them now a palpable, amplifying aura of nothingness. Nothingness which, of course, meant something different to everyone. To himself, a thorough failure of a god, it felt like the absence in a heavy heart – the long emptiness of space beyond a cliff. An easily dismissible mental effect. 

The little one was suffering from void over-exposure, and their sibling an aura that intensified the effect of all void around it. An aura that had grown not-sharp and not-stronger with the strength of their emotion.

To the little failed vessel, it would feel like agony. 

Perhaps not realising this, they shift their feet a minuscule distance forward. The void exposed hatchling lets out a low whine, too tired to vocalise any louder. The Lord of Shades yanks their feet back as though burned. The message was clear. They would not be able to come close. Not until they reigned it in. Their unfettered presence would sharpen their sibling's pain, and should they come too near they might just kill it.

He watches, distantly, as they slowly realise this. As they raise their eyes to meet his, an accusatory angle to their mask. 

Let the weight of their glare settle on his shell.

He was responsible, of course. For the entire chain of events that had led to this little one melting apart here, on the cold stone of the Abyss. For their own unfamiliarity with the abilities that came with Ascension, to the point that they did not know how to diminish their own presence. He had left them all to die. If he had not resorted to such desperate depravity – if he had not drawn the moths to this side – if he had simply died that day after infusing Hallownest with his gift, instead of leading those who would become his to their painful demises –

If, if, if. 

His regret, much like he had presupposed, was as useless as the rest of him.

This was evident; they cared. Or at the very least, they were showing an interest - without the ability to touch their mind and elucidate what they felt, he could not be certain.

(Hatchling 54,671 had had a curious ability. Soul Healing, and the ability to forcibly draw Soul from a great distance. Every time it fell, it would crack. Every time it fell, it needed to heal. Every time it fell, to the bottom of that great Abyss, there had only ever been one plentiful source of Soul.

It killed every last hatchling that had hatched with it. It had not known not to.

The Abyss had been silent, when he had approached it. Quiet save for the rattle of a dying breath. It had shrunken back, at the sound of his footsteps. Gripped the wing-cloak of one of its batchmates tighter around the gaping chasm of its mask. Trembled and trembled and trembled like a leaf in the wind as he breathed the first, last and only words it would ever hear.

Flawed.

For a fear of death.)

It was fortunate, then, that there was no cause for concern. The failed vessel was not capable of anything beyond the basest physiological reactions. It was not capable of any emotion beyond some vague longing for company.

He was well-acquainted with child murder. It would not feel a thing.

-

Apathy, now, like the long white drape of a corpse-blanket. An old friend, reunited. He welcomes it, lets it sprawl over his shoulders and still the traitorous tremble of his flesh. Perspective – it was necessary, to do what was right. What he owed the last shreds of his dead children.

He looks down, cocks his head ever so slightly as he appraises it. The failed vessel still looks up at him like he was its salvation. Still spills void from its hollow mask in some imitation of tears. A curious reaction. A physiological reflex to pain, most likely; and truly, its agony must be immense. The bulk of its void body more closely resembles a bloated mass of tendrils than the four limbs and torso that most 'healthy' hatchlings had sported upon birth. Under his level gaze, it tightens its tiny fists. Weeps, low and seemingly distressed. 

Its soft shell splits, then splits further. More void leaks out to pool on the ground. It was not of sufficient quantity, nor was this crude bloodletting accompanied by the reconstruction of its organs, and thus it would not save it. 

Most certainly it was possible, of course. To save it. To filigree Soul into their shell, to soothe away the over-exposure with pale light.

(To even think of doing so was a disgusting indulgence of the tallest order. With a subtle flex of his wrist, he yanks his fingers free from his lower palms. They are at this point more puncture than flesh. He cannot remember, this time, when he had punctured them.) 

However.

What would proceed such an action? What would this little empty thing do, after? It had not will, nor mind, and a voice was useless without either of those to direct it. It only cried, now, out of instinct. Only reached out for him, because he had made it so.

He takes in a shuddering breath, careful to not let the Lord of Shades see the motion. 

-

He - 

(- needs to end its pain. it would be easy, too easy. it is very small. it is very breakable. his claws were meant to rend and kill, and its shell was meant to break.)

but had his head always been this heavy? had his claws always been so stiff?)

\- shifts. Nearer. 

-

_What was he doing._

Closeness is not necessary for what he is about to do. Nonetheless. Now that it is close. Now that his heavy, heavy mask hangs over it in some mockery of a protective stance. Now that underneath the grimy rags his claws flex and twitch with some unthinkable desire, that bade him reach out and smooth away the void that trailed from their eyes.

He did not want to lean away.

-

He. He –

( - will muster the strength to do what is right. It was dead. _It was dead._ It was only his sentiment – it was only his failure - )

\- is near enough, now. To make out the little sharp juts on the branches of its two horns. 

-

It holds itself together now with something a weaker creature would liken to determination - squaring its tiny void warped shoulders, eyes tracing the reduced distance between them. Driven by his enchantment.

Suddenly. As though instinctively seeking comfort. It huffs a single, pain-stuttered breath. Then, shaking with the sheer effort of it. With some imitation of desperate hope, in the slant of its eyes. It pushes one arm against the stone of the Abyss and reaches out with the other as if to press its small claws against his mask.

(the first hatchling had horns so very similar and _something_ emerges then, some irrational impulse, and it is utterly delusory but it wedges in the core of him, in the heart of him, in the pulse of his ichor under his shell.

it was going to touch him just they had. it is going to _crack apart just like they had_ )

It is drawing closer, now. At some point, the edges of its small mandibles had slipped free of its mask in childish concentration.

He needs to order it to cease its movement. His own mandibles work, but no sound emerges from his throat, and what is he _doing_ , he already knew that the void had pared his voice clean out of him and he made to slip into mental projection and his pulse was in his throat and the core of his teeth and he could not speak, the words would not come out it was coming closer and he needed to make it stop and.

It is looking at him with wide void-black eyes. To those eyes, he realised. Slowly, with a dawning horror. He was its entire world.

He must move, and if speech was not an option - he willed the frantic patter of his hearts to cease, by Root, they would _cease_ \- then he simply had to move.

Shallow puffs of cold air whisper against his robes. Chilled by the coldness of its void. 

Move.

His light illuminated the finer cracks in its mask. Void dripped from its outstretched arm and pattered against his robes. The points of its nubby claws glinted in his light.

move.

He could almost feel the whisper of them on his shell. Little gleaming points, in the dark.

move you useless lump of flesh it is going to _die_ move move **move**

Its claw spasms. His eyes draw to the motion and he catches a glimpse of some mimicry of shock before its supporting arm gives out and it lets out a loud cry as it falls and –

 _Something_ roars in him, and he catches it before it falls flat on its face. 

-

He – 

(little soft body, bloated with liquid void. little eyes wide with shock, then falling closed with a small, contented hum. little void hands, curling in his robes. little, little, little. But it was not a child. _It was not a child._ )

((they had been his child.))

\- stands.

Still.

-

Someone was yelling, he could hear. Someone, somewhere, far away. It was a yell that gobbled all sound into itself. It was a cry of the unheard. It came from everywhere but where the Lord of Shades stood. Thus, he knew. That if he looked up, he would see them screaming. At him? At it? At what he planned to do? He did not know.

He did not move. ( _they were going to break_ ) Did not, in fact, do anything that he should have. 

He had always been a disgusting coward.

The failed vessel nuzzles its mask against his thorax, thorned horns catching lightly in the fabric of his robes. He could feel it shivering. Feel it curling close to the relative warmth of his shell. How thoroughly convincing, this mimicry of life. How very much so like a child. Persuasive enough to tug at some vestigial instinct that had not the decency to fade away.

They shift, and nearly slip from his loose grasp. Without thinking, he cradles them closer to his chest and -  


Void tendrils _writhe_ and burst free from the sea towards them at his motion and the hatchling curls up and _wails_. Its weakened shell bulges out, the void within it longing to return to its source and something squeezes in his void-eaten chest and he is curling over it _why is he bending over it_ in this farcical _imitation_ of protectiveness and the Lord of Shades. Freezes.

The void tendrils dissipate. The hatchling goes slack in his arms. He lets out a breath he did not know he was holding. His hearts beat and beat and beat and would not cease their pointless patter.

Before he can stop himself (they would not want to hear your justifications), he speaks.

“It is not your duty,” he murmurs, mental voice low and hoarse. In the aftermath of the little one’s wail, his voice is all the louder. “To take up my burden.” 

The Lord of Shades was not capable of speech in that lesser form. (He had, after all, designed them that way.) Elsewise they would have already spoken up, eager to taunt as they are. 

Therefore, in response to his words, they stare flatly back at him. He winced internally as he became acutely aware of his hypocrisy – they _had_ been the one to slay the Old Light. But something they read in the lines of his body lead the subtle jitter of their feet to cease. To abort their motion for something on their back, as though seeking a non-existent nail. They let their arms fall back to their sides. They stared.

It might have been his own bias, but their expression was almost…exasperated. One part simmering anxiety, simmering under the surface, in the way the void sea roiled with their shallow breaths. One part pique, a child crossing their arms and going ‘well, then.’ Lastly. 

One part a slow _knowing_.

 _What_ did they know? The failed vessel was not alive. It could not be alive. He must. _He must,_ and the yawning ache of his chest that had widened at the thought had no right to exist. He straightened himself from his position bent nearly double over them, thoughts whirring in his head. 

If he let it live, he would be condemning it this half-thing that might have been his child to life like a porcelain doll. Only moving when commanded. Only living when projected onto. Playing house with a corpse with the curve of his Lady’s roots and the colour of his shell and rarely, ever so rarely, a twinkling hint of what might have been.

(But the Pure Vessel had not been a corpse, and they had been the emptiest of them all. Corpses did not dream. Corpses did not scream. Corpses did not walk to their deaths with their head held high.)

The failed vessel gave up nuzzling in favour of pressing its small mask into his robes. This could not be comfortable. His light would be shining directly into its eyes. It persisted.

He had dimmed his light even before he had even thought to allay the motion.

 _What was he doing._

Death would be a _mercy_ , and when the lilt of his own thoughts dares turn near-pleading he wrenches them back into objectivity with a shudder. Here was the truth; the child-thing that was clinging to him was nothing more than a void-reanimated corpse. No action that it took was actually reflective of sentience, not when he could – would – had – reached out to touch its mind, and found nothing but an endless darkness and a singularly desperate desire.

It did not matter what it did. Not the sound it is making now, kneading at the chitin of his lower body with its stubby claws. Nor the manner in which its breath hitches, void tears slowly drying up. It is resting the side of its hollow head against his thorax. It is so very light, so very young, and it would fit so well in his Lady’s roots, if she could bear to see him –

-

He - 

(- _must_. there were so many ways for a hatchling to die, and it would certainly die, but he would not have it suffer. he already knew the sound it would make when its shell would crack. the same that the pure vessel's had, when it did.)

\- lifts a softly glowing claw.

-

What a significant flaw it held. Loneliness, and the ability to voice it. Even what remanent of his child that was left would only suffer. 

(The Lord of Shades had held only an endless will, but they were far more than a remanent of a child. No half-dead godling without a mind or voice would have been capable of looking him in the eye and denying him so. 

He can still sense them now. Appraising.)

Presses his clawtips, ever so lightly, to the curve of its face.

Focuses.

And breathes out the first words of a spell.

(and if the lilt of his words sounded ever so slightly like the notes of an old lullaby. this was a coincidence, and nothing more.)

-

Regret only wanted, regardless of truth. Regardless of the impossibility of what it demanded. And how did he want. 

They wrap their goopy arms around him, as best as they could.

How did he _want_ , just like them.

How utterly repulsive he was, for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pk, hugging a vessel: they can't feel anything *he pats them on the head* literally a reanimated corpse *rubs away their tears* i killed like a hundred thousand of them and i'll do it again *heals vessel* i don't regret it at all because they weren't alive *radiates enough regret to drown a civilisation*
> 
> ghost, incarnation of regret, lord of shades, looking into the camera like they're in the office: ...


	6. so please (so please) -

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pale King grapples with the consequences of his incompetence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawling in, looking like i got beat up and then got left for dead in the outskirts of Serbia*: ...uwu
> 
> 2020 fucked me up good, guys. have a late chapter. i love you

(“Send it back,” his Lady had whispered, and he had paused. Then, there at the entrance of the Pure Vessel’s room. It had not been very long since their arrival into the White Palace. He had been in the midst of summoning them to his workshop.  


He had not been in the habit of hesitating at the sound of his Lady’s voice. Still, there had been something in the timbre of it. Her thoughts, when he had reached out to ascertain their nature, blossomed impressions; the grim flagstones of a fortress, under fire – the tightening clack of back-plates, bracing – a shield-shell, buckling –  


Resolve. Sombre resolve, and pain.  


To as to the cause, he did not know. The fact that she had not already made it known to him suggested that she was requesting a degree of privacy. However, if she wanted _total_ privacy, she would have made her thoughts utterly unknowable to him.  


He sent a questing thought to her, and she did not answer save for the vaguest sense of a head turned away. Bent, he had realised, in sorrow.  


There were precious few developments that could have caused this.  


His Lady was in the Pure Vessel's room, a scant few metres away.  


(he had hurt her. he had - )  


The familiar need to be by her side welled up, effervescent and powerful. She knew that he was a mere corner-turn away. He whispered a thought down their bond, making known to her that he meant to approach.  


She did not answer. This was not a denial. Neither was it acceptance.  


“Your Majesty. Surely, the child needs - “  


“The thought is appreciated,” she had continued, voice firm. No hint of her turmoil revealed itself, even as it churned and twisted under the surface of her demeanour. Their subjects required guidance, and she would give it. “However, it is not required.”  


He had been right beside the arch of the entranceway. A single step and he would be plainly visible. Still, he had hesitated. Curled his tail about his feet.  


Should he enter?  


Had they not promised each other happiness, a kingdom ago? To keep each other company in that delirious beginning, when they had first realised - wonderfully, staggeringly, miraculously - that neither of them need be alone? Again, in the blissful years after, in that slow blossoming of contentment that had come with being together?  


(His Lady has always had the most wondrous laugh – but when she was truly happy, she lost her words. Her eyes would curl up in a smile, just so, and her roots would glow and sparkle in this most fetching shade of pale light. A blush would rise to her cheeks, tinged ever so slightly cerulean - like precious scraps of the untainted sky, when the Wastes deigned to calm.  


If she was feeling mischievous, she liked to whisper 'facts' to him - knowledge, she would claim with a wink, beyond the reach of either of their subjects - and hide the truth of their veracity. Little fanciful secrets, as she twinned the roots of her mind with his, as she curled between his arms and made known her delight, as she invited him to guess what was truth or falsehood.)

Was their bond not meant for the sharing of burdens, just as much as it was for the sharing of joys?  


There was only, truly, one thing he would ever do.  


He rounded that entranceway.  


The retainer, bent nearly double in apologetic supplication, did not see him and did not look up. His Lady, slowly, did.  


His eyes swept swiftly across the room. The Pure Vessel was not present, and there were no other new developments that could have caused such distre -  


A cradle, pushed to the side of the room.  


Beautifully and diligently crafted, details chiselled delicately into stone with the kind of peerless artistic ingenuity that their subjects had in spades. Situated by its side had been all manner of other preparations for the arrival of a child; a toy chest, soft silken blankets, a small brush for stubborn nooks in the shell.  


It was only a cradle.  


He could not look away.  


His Root had met his gaze, then, and there had been a terrible thing in her eyes. It was the slow and insidious knowledge that she had always only ever been who she had thought she was. It was the serenity that came with an acceptance. It was grief, and it was love, and it was the anguish that came of knowing that these things were not enough, even, in the face of your duty to your people.  


(It was the truth, hard-won: given the same opportunity, she would do the exact same thing.)  


(she had known, even then, when not even he had known himself: that he would not.)  


((and he had thought, then: he had hurt her with this; regardless of the reason, regardless of her acceptance, he had been the one to _ask_.  


and now he dared to look back at what he had wrought and regret, like he had the right. were that the cause of this failure be physical, and he could excise it like a tumour. were that he could turn the scalpel against himself and carve away the rot.  
were that it be so easy.))  


She had spoken, then. Quietly, and with the barest hint of melancholy in her voice, so faint only he would have been capable of picking it out. Her eyes, closing with ersatz calmness. Her roots, gathering themselves tighter around her.  


A truth, as she knew it. As he had told her.  


“It is a Vessel. An object. Nothing more, and nothing less.”  


-  


The light of the healing spell - it _had_ been a healing spell, had it not been, that had passed his mandibles and whispered past his claws – faded. The intensity of his focus diminishes as he unclenches his muscles, as black dots bloom once more in his vision. Overexertion, most likely. Blinking rapidly would not dislodge them, and neither would rubbing at his eyes like a hatchling past their bedtime. He resists the urge to do either.  


Looks down, then, at the results of his failure.  


Hatchling 12,313 was approximately 54.1 cm tall, not accounting for their horns. Their long exposure to the Abyssal Sea had resulted in major organ damage, most notably to their malpighian tubules and their midgut.  


Accounting for this, he had coalesced an appropriate amount of Soul into his claws – and, like a prism to light - had used the medium of the spell to hone it into a more useful form. Had seeped it into their void-haemolymph and forced it to still, temporarily, as he reconstituted them from the inside out. Focused harder still, then, to burn the excess, foreign void – and _only_ the foreign void.  


Lastly, he had rebuilt their limbs; crafted anew their hands, their feet. Pieced together their nerves and muscles so they could be functional. The easiest task for the very last: the regrowth of their shell. Which, at this age, only constituted a thin Soul-forged membrane. They only required one last thing, and they would be able to wake.  


It was a relatively easy task to heal oneself – he had taken the liberty of doing so, if only to his throat, for the sake of ease of communication. It was far more difficult to heal another. He had always envied his Root and Unn their ease in doing so.  


…To heal the vessel at all proved that there were still depths of ineptitude that was possible for a god to reach, should they have half a mind to.  


By Root and Grimm, he was so tired.  


-  


He had healed them.  


Why?  


Did it matter how small they were, when he had let smaller fall? That they are pressing their tiny head to his thorax, when 13 other vessels had done the same and had still perished at his hand? Why did it matter how he much selfishly wanted the impossible? They were incapable of fulfilling the singular purpose for which they had been born. They were incapable of anything else. There was only one logical solution to such a thing.  


(Why now, and not before he had filled the Abyss with their _corpses_?)  


Because -  


The Pure Vessel’s impurity. The Lord of Shades’ mere presence. With every huff of piqued breath, with every fidget of their tiny feet, with every frustrated flail of their nubby arms at him from the Abysmal Shore, as though they were imagining his shell under their fists. Every sickening globule of Infection that spilled from the Black Egg.  


\- they heavily suggested that he had been more gravely wrong than his wildest expectations.  


That he had been _mistaken_ all along about the nature of the vessels. That it was possible for them, even without his interference, to become fully capable of thought, of wilfulness, of personality. It was possible even that they had all been fully sentient from their hatching, and not even in mere imitation of, like a maskfly imitates its keeper’s voice – but wholly so, enough to live as they pleased for centuries without any order to do so. To kill a god entirely of their own volition.  


The possibility remained that there had simply been a mistake in his calculations for the last batch of hatchlings, from which both the Pure Vessel and the Lord of Shades had come from. It was not an insignificant possibility. This entire debacle was proof enough that he was far from infallible.  


…assuming the insentience of any vessel was to delve further into the depths of idiocy.  


He would assume sentience instead. That he was largely incapable of sensing the presence of their Minds – even now, he could only sense nothing but nothing from either vessel in front of him - nor the potential for it to grow, but it was there.  
It therefore stood to reason: there was a very strong possibility, now, that he had not killed embryos before they had even come to be. In the egg, like he had presumed.  


He had killed his _fully alive children_.  


112,504 total hatchlings.  


(Hatchling 89,658 was an odd one. Having discovered that it was possible to place items within themselves, they had begun trying to store everything and anything they could. At one point, he had caught them trying to slot a struggling Shadow Creeper into their belly. A vestigial attempt to sate hunger? When he had bent down to inspect them for impurity, they had attempted to bite his hand.)  


(Hatchling 90,121 had not even made an attempt to ascend, despite being entirely capable of doing so. They had wandered the bottom of the Abyss, scratching their claws at the walls. Pressing their head against the stone as they did so. Having inherited a shard of his light, they had unconsciously encouraged their siblings to do the same. On the day that they had been born, the Abyss had been awash with song. It had not remained so.)  


(Hatchling 45,235 had ascended with Hatchling 45,238 on their back. Their horns had been tangled together – a happy mistake for the latter, for they had been born without a leg and arm. Their sibling had mechanically soldiered onwards, too mindless to detach the weight of them from their back. When he had bade them fall, they had been holding hands.)  


Two survivors.  


-  


To come here was only prudence. 

-  


He pulls himself back from the haze of his thoughts. Blinks. There was reason, still, to do so. A mistake that he had not yet corrected.  


He looks down at his claws. At the way all four of them had risen up to cradle the little one, void-stained chitin against void-stained chitin. At the way he still stood, only some distance away, from the Lord of Shades – who had, despite his abject neglect, had succeeded beyond his strangest foresight-predictions. A rumble had begun low in his chest, directed at the both of them in some twisted attempt at care and reassurance.  


Every second more was a risk. Every breath was a liability.  


…How much time had passed?  


The Lord of Shades still waited there, tiny antlered head cocked to the side (all 48.5 centimetres of them). They would not be denied. The longer their sibling remained still, the longer the sinuous shadows shifted to reflect their unifier’s state. The more the room darkened, both literally and figuratively, with a tension. An expectation unfulfilled.  


Hatchling 12,313’s state was stable – the healing spell had decried that their vitals were steady, and he could feel them breathing easy in his arms – but it would be prudent to check again before asking the Lord of Shades for what they needed.  
The Lord of Shades wanted their sibling. Presumably, healthy and whole.  


(and he owed them both the world.)  


He would do this last thing.  


He settles his gaze in the general vicinity of his arms and the vessel tucked in-between them. Helped, in part, by the weight of his sagging head. Upon Hatchling 12,313’s mask, pressed against his chest. He was overcompensating for their weight by holding them tighter than strictly necessary; with the mass of excess void burned away, they now felt as light as a ragdoll.  


He blinks, and the world wavers again. It would be in his best interest to stop doing that.  


He had been. Doing something? Yes. He had been. Focus.  


He is. Assessing the structural integrity of the little one’s reconstructed limbs. Reaffirming that they were hale and hearty. Yes. That is what he is doing. An important thing, really. To determine if he had truly succeeded. He needs to wake them. He needs to ask the Lord of Shades…  


His gaze tumbles down the length of their Soul-reinforced body. Drifts over their arms to linger on the articulation of their tiny claws. He counts the seconds between their breaths – inhale, 1, 2, 3, 4, exhale – and notes the firmness of the shell of their feet. Catches, lastly, on the pale gleam of their mask.  


Everything appears to be in order.  


He kneels, then. Reaches out and tries to gently set the vessel on the stone floor. His claws spasm, and their head still impacts the ground with a hollow thunk. Rolls to the side, limp as wet parchment. He winces.  


This little one is not yet capable of Focus – and therefore, of regenerating their own voids-blood and shell. He could only do so much. Is incapable, utterly, of producing void of the specific quality required.  


(void, fresh from a dead god’s slashed vein. from the deepest depths of the abyss. ichor, sprouting from the proffered cup of a devoted follower, their piety immortalised in death – staining his hands, as he lowered _precious!presciouskeepwarmkeepsafe_ eggs into its stone embrace.  


They would be born of God and Void.)  


All they needed now to wake was a blessing from the Lord of Shades, who now stood in front of him.  


The Lord of Shades, who had been watching their sibling, flexing their small hands, for movement that had not come. The Lord of Shades, who was incapable of coming close to their sibling without accidentally killing them, and had seen him place their limp and unmoving body onto the ground. Who was only incapable of such because they were his child – and therefore, lacked knowledge that had been his responsibility to give.  


The very same Lord of Shades.  


(Grimm would howl with laughter, if he ever came to know the events that had transpired. He had always particularly enjoyed irony, especially if it was at his expense.)  


They snap their head up from their sibling to stare at him. This little ghost of Hallownest, with their empty eyes.  
And he is very, very aware of what this looks like.  


-  


The world did not so much as _grow_ dark as it did sink back into it. Oceans, and stones cast so deeply into them that they forgot the kiss of light.  


He is staring at nothing, because there is nothing there. Only the long dark. Only a nagging sense of unease. Only an unholy silence so heavy that it had collapsed into itself into an impossibly high keen – that not-sounded, strangely, like the spaces between stars were _crying_.  


The Pale King listens. Most certainly, to listen to nothing was a fanciful notion. However, he has the vaguest impression that this was a cry that he should respond to, although never before had he encountered such an event in all his eons of unfortunate existence. It was familiar. It is important. It is small, and young, and sad. It warbles through his flesh so softly and so mournfully that he had begun to bleed nothing from his eyes.  


How strange, to take note of nothing. How strange, his certainty that to do nothing was to die by its hand.  


(would that truly be so terrible?)  


…He speaks. The urge to respond had grown, like some throbbing cancer in his chest that refused to be whittled away. Nothing would dissuade it. Not the truth of his sheer incompetence, nor the knowledge that it was because of him that the voice was crying.  


How utterly disgusting. This longing, this hope. It made him want; and he wants – he _wants_ -  


“Do not cry.”  


It was impossible to break this silence, for there was nothing to break. The keening paused, nonetheless. Almost hiccupped into audibility, as though a very small child was attempting to fight back tears. As if nothing was capable of tears. Another ridiculously fanciful notion.  


A fanciful notion that refused to leave.  


It was becoming increasingly clear to him – here, now, where his world was coming to an end – that it was important that no tears should be shed by the darkness. That the cause for such sadness be remedied, in any manner possible; and that for once – _for once_ \- it was possible.  


All he had to do was to teach.  


Ludicrous. Important, somehow.  


“They are not dead. They, however, require your aid.”  


Was it possible for the sheer and unageing darkness to appear incredulous? They do so, now. They do not tilt their tiny horned head, or say a single word, or move a single muscle to make a furious gesture that would have had the noblewomen clutching their pearls. They reach out and grasp his words and nibble vindictively on them until there is silence again.  


l͎͙̲̭̗i͙̦͉̞̰͍͙es̨͉͖͔̘!͎̞̬͘ ͙͙͍͟l̤i̩̘̖͇̜͇̫a̫̻̤͍̘͉͎r̨̩̼!̗͓̫͉͖ ̹̤͎si̶̩͉̗̮̝b̵̼͚͙l̠͚i̖͇͔̘͜n̸͔̭g̼̺͕͈͇͇ ̡͓͙̮i̸̖s̘̼ ̮̠͔͡ḍ̢͕͉̝ͅe̖a̪̖͓͙̳̺d̕, he thinks, because who else is there to think these things? it was _him_ because _t̝̟̣̹͚͠h̫̪̻̘͈͞e̶͚̻y̟̼͡ ̫͔͍h͉̲̼̳ḁ̮̰d̦̳ ͏̻̤̬̻̯̮ͅf̟̜͕̳a̘̱͉̻̮͇͇i͓̫̪̝͞le̖̦̰͟ͅḍ ͜t̲͇̻̕h̥e͙̮̗̼̮͞ͅm͝_ and there was no reason to restrain themselves to just tendrils – his hearts were beating pitter-patter-prey-fast - when they could simply swallow this i̶͓̗̯̯̩ns̶̱̭̜̟͚o͏͚̪̳̞l̵̠̟̻̰e̷̺̰̣n̹̰̩t̶ ͕̜g̖r̵̘ͅi͍̼̩̝͙e̳̫̳̗̼f̩̖̫-̟͕̥͓͙̗͚l҉̳̼̳̯̜ͅy̤͇̟͔̣i̡n͎͘g̺͙ ͓̯̩͟c̺̪̞̣͙o̯̬ͅw̟̤̖̭̝͜a͇̲̰͙̺̳ͅr͓̠͟d̬-̵͓̭̹̼̟s͖̯i̗̟̙̬̩͔r̪͕̼̪͔̲ͅe̗ w̯h̶͓͉o̩̯͎̗le̶͚̭̹̳ͅ  


The force of their fury descends anew upon him, and his arms shake with the effort it takes to not lean over and scream with the agony of it. It was opposed to him; to life, to light, to mind. It was that which he would never escape. It is all that he deserves it is all that he wants and what they wa –  


\- his death was not what _they_ truly want.  


What they want is their sibling, healthy and whole. They are operating on incomplete information and believe that to be impossible. They are a child, no matter their strength, and he is the Pale King.  


It is time he started acting like it.  


One would be hard pressed to call what sparks in his gut, ‘determination’, as he raises a claw to halt them. Slowly, surely, so it betrays nothing of the pain that shudders through his flesh, nor of the malfunction of their insistent tremble. It was resolve, perhaps. A contrariness? A dislike for strings left untied?  


Here is the truth: so very long ago, he had taught his first followers everything that they had asked of him. They had gone on to build the most wonderous civilisation he had ever known, and almost grasped eternity.  


They were all gone. There was much that could not be fixed. So many unanswered prayers. So many ruins. So many still little bodies, here in the dark.  


He looks up. Ignores the way his flesh burns cold at the motion. Teaches.  


“I speak the truth.”  


This vessel need not one of them.  


“Born of God and Void. An age ago, they heard me speak those words.”  


a pause. the slightest suggestion of a pale shell, emerging from the dark; and with it, a near imperceptible lifting of the darkness.  


The pain diminishes to merely crippling, instead of overwhelming. He sags, subtly, with relief.  


“Vessels,” he continues, voice turning lecturing, “constitute of void of a high grade of purity. I am unable to produce it. Only a God of Void would be capable of such a thing.”  


a sound like a warble turned inwards. and then he thought: s͉͕͙͖͓ib̘͖̫l̗i̮̺̞͈̭̫n̥̤͇̻͇̩ͅg̗̪̺̞ ̴̞̦͉̻̖į̝̠͙̩͙͎s͏͕̬͚ ̻̺̻̬̼͔̭͟n̛̰̭o̡̼̘̥̺̭t̢̟̟͕̩̖̩ ̶͉d̛̙̹̲̦̬̱͍e̗͍͔͈̮̦͈a̟d͉͕̤̹̺̥̳?̜ ͕̝͈͝n͉̻͎̘o̵̟t̕ ͖̳̤̰̙̝̖d̖̖̺͖͎ͅe̮̳͍a̡̮̲̫d͎̩͙͎ ̯a̹̦̠̤n͍̯̭̮d ̫̫̱i̯ ̡̩c͎͈͓̗̝͙̺͢a͖̳̤n̞͙̠͙̟͔̜͞ ̢̼̣̤͔̯h͖̦e͍̤̙͙̯̭ļ̳͔̦p̯̲̟͎̗͙?̦͖̙̬̳̹͡  


“Yes,” he whispers, feeling rather ridiculous. Had he truly fallen so far, to be rambling to himself in the dark?  


“However, they need the blessing of a Lord of Shades. One capable of consolidating their power so that it does not affect those susceptible to it.”  


nothing impossibly sharp swishes through the air, then, like the unsheathing of a nail. menace, settling solidly on his shell.  


no̴̩̮̝̙͓̺ ̹l̢̯̲i̦̩̤e͖̦̣͈̯͙ ̳͚͎̤͉͘ṱ̲̭̭̰͎̖o͖̭̦͇̲̠̜ ̠̳͖m͔͈ẹ͕, nothing demands –  


\- and a sense of dark hilarity blindsides him then, with such force and such swiftness that he has to fight to keep himself from shaking with it.  


It is true, is it not? He has done nothing but lie to every creature unfortunate enough to be the recipient of his care. The emptiness was right to ask this of him; it was a miracle that it even was listening at all.  


“No more lies,” he promises, and lets the ring of his conviction echo out across the dark.  


a pause. nothing considers him. some ridiculous part of him insists that they peer through to the core and heart of him; that they are, at this very moment, reading the eddies of his soul. silence abounds. they gnaw on any sound he could have ever made, lost in thought.  


they give a little sigh. looks up, as though praying for patience.  


they decide.  


and the world surges back into existence as they cease to bade it silent and there it was, the depths of the Abyss in all its dust-dead-poisonous glory and Hatchling 12,313 lying limp-near-dead on the cold stone floor and he was here, he was alive, and he looks ahead and down and there they were _again_ , having squeezed themselves too tight into that shell.  


The Lord of Shades, once in their hatchling form, having decided not to kill him. They look unerringly into his eyes, and there is something about the way they look up at him, with that hollow-eyed expectant tilt to their head and the notches of their horns -  


-  


(The Pure Vessel did not have a mind. This did not preclude it the ability to learn, for even an automaton was capable of following imprinted instructions. However, its biological makeup, although godly, meant that it was capable of _forgetting_.  


This was a vast inconvenience when one was attempting to strengthen it.  


“No,” he had intoned, and the Pure Vessel stopped its wild nail gestures and craned its neck to meet his eyes.  


With nary a sigh, he had knelt down to its level. Reached out, then, and placed his hands on its own to carefully manoeuvre its tiny claws into the right position on its shellwood nail. Such care was wholly justifiable; it was newly born, and therefore fragile. Only one of its kind existed and he did not want to damage it.  


This had been his third attempt at teaching the Pure Vessel proper nail handling technique. Once, when he had nearly arranged them into the right position, their claw had caught on the threads of his sleeve. Extricating it without damaging the cloth had taken nearly five minutes. They had even somehow managed to get dusty in the process – necessitating another full brush down.  


He set the final claw into its correct arrangement, curled around the hilt of the nail. Gently cupped his claws around its own. Then he pressed its claws more firmly into the right position, looking down to meet their empty gaze on habit.  
It was only his sentimentality that made that gaze seem expectant. Habit, from interacting with so many of his living subjects earlier that day.  


Abruptly, he had stood and taken a step back. There was no longer a need for closeness. Had, rather, taken a step forward and tapped the Soul Statue that he had erected for the purposes of its training. He did not look at it.  


“When holding your nail,” he had informed it, “keep your claws in this position.”  


The Pure Vessel had turned its gaze onto the statue.  


“Now, strike.”  


It lunged forward and struck the statue with a mechanical precision.  


“Again, ten times in quick succession.”  


It had obeyed swiftly. He had watched them, mulling over the issue at hand.  


It had remembered an instruction to meet his eyes when he given it a week ago, but had already forgotten what he had taught them yesterday about nail technique. Perhaps this could be attributed to more complex instructions? He would have to experiment with alternative teaching methods. He had far more than nail techniques to teach them, and he could not afford to fail.  


(the cold weight of their tiny claws in his own palms -)  


(the cold shock of nothing against his mind - ?)  


-  


He snaps his focus back, coming back to the present with a barely audible gasp - in a flash of brilliant Soul-light, pries their dread influence away from his mind – rallies his thoughts, his words:  


And demands, sternly: “You will cease that at _once._ ”  


The Lord of Shades raps their tiny feet against the stone floor. The pit pat of them echoes, muffled strangely by their nature. He narrows his eyes at them, as they innocently tilt their head at him. He had the distinct impression that if they were capable of whistling, they would be doing so.  


That was no natural recollection. Inwardly, he frowns. The draw of memory was too strong about them - they were a God of Regret, Lord of Shades and shadow, and there was very little left to him but his regrets.  


As a unifying force, their presence drew all that lingered to the surface; to _them_. This was their ‘aura’. Hatchling 12,313, in their fragile state, was not capable of withstanding their closeness. Therein lay the problem.  


…̣͇̟͔̹͖̼̕ḩ̞̝̠̩o͏͔̬̝̫̬͍w ̡͔̤s̥̞a̵v̵̠͎̘̘̺͇̺e̙̹͔͖̲ͅ ̫̩̣̙̠̩ş͕̻̼ͅi̧̯b̧̪͖͍̹̳͍ͅl͎̩̠i̪̦̳̦͕͝n̗g̨̣͍͓̲̥?̣̯̪ͅͅ  


How, indeed?  


“One must remember - ” he pauses, mulling over the words.  


“As a being of higher power, one is dangerous. I say this not as an indictment, but as fact. To declare your strength to the world is to _change_ it, for a Higher Being is a force of nature.”  


And mortals were so very fragile.  


“At the heart of one’s domain,” he states, “where the majority of one’s power resides, one is often at one’s most powerful. Unrestrained, one’s mere presence would…affect any creature not of them, or even those susceptible to one’s influence.”  


The process of forging a new form more suited to engaging with lesser creatures would take time; time that Hatchling 12,313 did not have to spare. With that choice unavailable to them, there was only one other option.  


“The Abys- “ he swallows back a cough, and cursed the void still grinding at his throat to the Nightmare Realm, “-mal Sea is your home, your heart and the seat of your power. Your presence here allows you to draw from it, for it belongs to you.”  


He nods at them, all the way from where they still stood on the Abyssmal Shore. They were listening attentively, eyes locked on him.  


“The opposite is also true, and is what you must accomplish.”  


At that, they shifted nearly mulishly on their feet. Something about the jut of their head and the angle of their shoulders suggested they did not appreciate being told what to do. Particularly by him.  


But their eyes trail to the little one by his feet, and their shoulders squared in determination.  


They nod back at him. The message was clear; they would try, but not in the least because of him. That was enough. They crouched down in preparation.  


“Focus. Gather your strength into yourself. Draw upon the Abyssmal Sea, paying particular attention to your connection with it – “  


The world darkens – sound dims- Hatchling 12,313 twitches, claw scraping at dirt -  


“- and then redirect your power back _into_ the Sea.”  


\- and then lightened, in a manner not unlike an exhalation of relief. Existence lingered, tremulous and hesitant.  


“Excellent job,” he praises, and some ridiculous error made the words slip out _warm_ , of all things. The Lord of Shades noticed, peering at him from the corners of their eye-holes. He fought off the encroaching self-criticism at the action with tired ease; there was no time, now, to dwell on it.  


“Your strength still belongs to you; without some form of vessel, or sufficient distance from your realm, it will continually attempt to reunite. For the time being, you cannot allow it. Do not attempt to dam the connection; rather, continuously redirect your power back into the Sea, and draw a diminishing amount back. Form a closed loop.”  


The Lord of Shades’ posture shakes with effort. It was clear that they had never before attempted to cast magic of this manner, or perhaps for this long – it was taking a visible toll on them, apparent in the way their head bobbed back and forth with the strain.  


He notices, belatedly, that they had tear tracks. Dark, trailing down to the base of their mask.  


(you did this to them _you did this to them_ )  


…Nevertheless, it is working. Their aura ebbs back into themselves, little by little. Soon, he would be able to carry their sibling to them, to be healed. Soon, there would be nothing more they could ask of him.  


Soon, it would be all over.  


-  


He understood, now. It had taken far too long, but he had now grasped it.  


The problem was as such: he had still thought, foolishly, that there had still been parts of him that were worthy to redeem. Thus, he had persisted.  


(his legacy was nothing but the tears of his Lady and the chitin-dust of 112,504 hatchlings crunching under his feet killed as they had begged and millions of dead under his rule and a millennium of torture for the one child he had spared - 

and he had still not _changed_. two survivors of his massacre, and he had just attempted to kill one.)  


There was so much _rot_. There was too much of it - and to carve it away, just as he had a civilisation ago, until only perfection remained -  


That was impossible.  


He had made this body for a purpose. To lead and to teach and to treasure. To forge Hallownest, shining and glorious and eternal, for those who lived in it – for one who he had _loved_. To prove himself above any barbaric Wyrm that had come before him.  


(He had only ever been capable of one thing, and one thing alone.)  


This mistake would be rectified.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pk, resolutely: i've connected the dots  
> ghost, praying to Hollow and Hornet for patience and guidance: you ain't connected SHIT  
> pk: I'VE CONNECTED THEM
> 
> I know I say this a lot, but I really do deeply appreciate any comments I get. I'm pretty much constantly worried about how my stuff comes across, and getting any response at all really helps :,) Like, you guys make it worth it. Worth all the worrying, and editing, and hours of fussing over thesaurus.com about synonyms and trying to find alternate ways to describe "darkness" and "void" :,)

**Author's Note:**

> :,) thank you so much for reading my ramblings;;;;
> 
> I'm waiting-for-reason on tumblr!


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